ABSTRACT
Horses kept by owners, who shared Cavendish's approach and who had spent a good deal of time with them from birth, would have established a similar positive relationship. Horses were notoriously susceptible to illness and injury, but at least those kept by the elite led a far more cosseted life than those maintained by the population at large. Their owners housed them in imposing stable blocks, hired staff to tend to them, and restricted them to a specific task. Breaking-in clearly marked an important step in the relationship between a horse and his owner, as it emphasized the control of one species over another, perhaps after a struggle to determine mastery. At least, the methods used softened over the course of the early modern period as owners – those who had read the manuals on horsemanship – absorbed the view of the writers that the process should be carried out sympathetically rather than by beating the animal into submission.
