Chapter 3

If you should want to lead your colt by the side of another horse, as is often the case, I would advise you to take your horse into the stable, attach a second strap to the colt's halter, and lead your horse up alongside of him. Then get on the broke horse and take one strap around his breast, under his martingale, (if he has any on,) holding it in your left hand. This will prevent the colt from getting back too far; besides, you will have more power to hold him, with the strap pulling against the horse's breast. The other strap take up in your right hand to prevent him from running ahead; then turn him about a few times in the stable, and if the door is wide enough, ride out with him in that position; if not, take the broke horse out first, and stand his breast up against the door, then lead the colt to the same spot, and take the straps as before directed, one on each side of his neck, then let some one start the colt out, and as he comes out, turn your horse to the left, and you will have them all right. This is the best way to lead a colt; you can manage any kind of a colt in this way, without any trouble; for, if he tries to run ahead, or pull back, the two straps will bring the horses facing each other, so that you can easily follow up his movements without doing much holding, and as soon as he stops running backward you are right with him, and all ready to go ahead. And if he gets stubborn and does not want to go, you can remove all his stubbornness by riding your horse against his neck, thus compelling him to turn to the right, and as soon as you have turned him about a few times, he will be willing to go along. The next thing, after you are through leading him, will be to take him into a stable, and hitch him in such a way as not to have him pull on the halter, and as they are often troublesome to get into a stable the first few times, I will give you some instructions about getting him in.

HOW TO LEAD A COLT INTO THE STABLE AND HITCH HIM WITHOUT HAVING HIM PULL ON THE HALTER.

You should lead the broke horse into the stable first, and get the colt, if you can, to follow in after him. If he refuses to go, step up to him, taking a little stick or switch in your right hand; then take hold of the halter close to his head with your left hand, at the same time reaching over his back with your right arm so that you can tap him on the opposite side with your switch; bring him up facing the door, tap him lightly with your switch, reaching as far back with it as you can. This tapping, by being pretty well back, and on the opposite side, will drive him ahead, and keep him close to you, then by giving him the right direction with your left hand you can walk into the stable with him. I have walked colts into the stable this way, in less than a minute, after men had worked at them half an hour, trying to pull them in. If you cannot walk him it at once this way, turn him about and walk him round in every direction, until you can get him up to the door without pulling at him. Then let him stand a few minutes, keeping his head in the right direction with the halter, and he will walk in, in less than ten minutes. Never attempt to pull the colt into the stable; that would make him think at once that it was a dangerous place, and if he was not afraid of it before, he would be then. Besides we don't want him to know anything about pulling on the halter. Colts are often hurt, and sometimes killed, by trying to force them into the stable; and those who attempt to do it in that way, go into an up-hill business, when a plain smooth road is before them.

If you want to hitch your colt, put him in a tolerably wide stall which should not be too long, and should be connected by a bar or something of that kind to the partition behind it; so that, after the colt is in he cannot get far enough back to take a straight, backward pull on the halter; then by hitching him in the center of the stall, it would be impossible for him to pull on the halter, the partition behind preventing him from going back, and the halter in the center checking him every time he turns to the left or right. In a state of this kind you can break every horse to stand hitched by a light strap, any where, without his ever knowing any thing about pulling. But if you have broke your horse to lead, and have learned him the use of the halter (which you should always do before you hitch him to any thing), you can hitch him in any kind of a stall, and give him something to eat to keep him up to his place for a few minutes at first and there is not one colt in fifty that will pull on his halter.

THE KIND OF BIT AND HOW TO ACCUSTOM A HORSE TO IT.

You should use a large, smooth, snaffle bit, so as not to hurt his mouth, with a bar to each side, to prevent the bit from pulling through either way. This you should attach to the head-stall of your bridle and put it on your colt without any reins to it, and let him run loose in a large stable or shed, some time, until he becomes a little used to the bit, and will bear it without trying to get it out of his mouth. It would be well, if convenient, to repeat this several times before you do anything more with the colt; as soon as he will bear the bit, attach a single rein to it, without any martingale. You should also have a halter on your colt, or a bridle made after the fashion of a halter, with a strap to it, so that you can hold or lead him about without pulling on the bit much. He is now ready for the saddle.

HOW TO SADDLE A COLT.

Any one man, who has this theory, can put a saddle on the wildest colt that ever grew, without any help, and without scaring him. The first thing will be to tie each stirrup strap into a loose knot to make them short, and prevent the stirrups from flying about and hitting him. Then double up the skirts and take the saddle under your right arm, so as not to frighten him with it as you approach. When you get to him, rub him gently a few times with your hand, and then raise the saddle very slowly until he can see it, and smell, and feel it with his nose. Then let the skirts loose, and rub it very gently against his neck the way the hair lays, letting him hear the rattle of the skirts as he feels them against him; each time getting a little farther backward, and finally slip it over his shoulders on his back. Shake it a little with your hand, and in less than five minutes you can rattle it about over his back as much as you please, and pull it off and throw it on again, without his paying much attention to it.

As soon as you have accustomed him to the saddle, fasten the girth. Be careful how you do this. It often frightens a Colt when he feels the girth binding him, and making the saddle fit tight on his back. You should bring up the girth very gently, and not draw it too tight at first, just enough to hold the saddle on. Move him a little, and then girth it as tight as you choose, and he will not mind it.

You should see that the pad of your saddle is all right before you put it on, and that there is nothing to make it hurt him, or feel unpleasant to his back. It should not have any loose straps on the back part of it to flap about and scare him. After you have saddled him in this way, take a switch in your right hand to tap him up with, and walk about in the stable a few times with your right arm over the saddle, taking hold of the reins on each side of his neck, with your right and left hands. Thus marching him about in the stable until you learn him the use of the bridle, and can turn him about in any direction, and stop him by a gentle pull of the rein. Always caress him, and loose the reins a little every time you stop him.

You should always be alone, and have your colt in some tight stable or shed, the first time you ride him; the loft should be high so that you can sit on his back without endangering your head. You can learn him more in two hours time in a stable of this kind, than you could in two weeks in the common way of breaking colts, out in an open place. It you follow my course of treatment, you need not run any risk, or have any trouble in riding the worst kind of a horse. You take him a step at a time, until you get up a mutual confidence and trust between yourself and horse. First learn him to lead and stand hitched, next acquaint him with the saddle, and the use of the bit; and then all that remains, is to get on him without scaring him, and you can ride him as well as any horse.

HOW TO MOUNT THE COLT.

First gentle him well on both sides, about the saddle, and all over, until he will stand still without holding, and is not afraid to see you any where about him.

As soon as you have him thus gentled, get a small block, about one foot or eighteen inches in height, and set it down by the side of him, about where you want to stand to mount him; step up on this, raising yourself very gently; horses notice every change of position very closely, and if you were to step up suddenly on the block, it would be very apt to scare him; but by raising yourself gradually on it, he will see you, without being frightened, in a position very near the same as when you are on his back.

As soon as he will bear this without alarm, untie the stirrup strap next to you, and put your left foot into the stirrup, and stand square over it, holding your knee against the horse, and your toe out, so as to touch him under the shoulder with the toe of your boot. Place your right hand on the front of the saddle and on the opposite side of you. Taking hold of a portion of the mane and the reins as they hang loosely over his neck with your left hand; then gradually bear your weight on the stirrup, and on your right hand, until the horse feels your whole weight on the saddle; repeat this several times, each time raising yourself a little higher from the block, until he will allow you to raise your leg over his croop, and place yourself in the saddle.

There are three great advantages in having a block to mount from. First, a sudden change of position is very apt to frighten a young horse that has never been handled; he will allow you to walk up to him, and stand by his side without scaring at you, because you have gentled him to that position, but if you get down on your hands and knees and crawl towards him, he will be very much frightened, and upon the same principle, he would frighten at your new position if you had the power to hold yourself over his back without touching him. Then the first great advantage of the block is to gradually gentle him to that new position in which he will see you when you ride him.

Secondly, by the process of leaning your weight in the stirrups, and on your hand, you can gradually accustom him to your weight, so as not to frighten him by having him feel it all at once. And in the third place the block elevates you so that you will not have to make a spring in order to get on to the horse's back, but from it you can gradually raise yourself into the saddle. When you take these precautions, there is no horse so wild, but what you can mount him without making him jump. I have tried it on the worst horses that could be found, and have never failed in any case. When mounting, your horse should always stand without being held. A horse is never well broke when he has to be held with a tight rein while mounting; and a colt is never so safe to mount, as when you see that assurance of confidence, and absence of fear, which causes him to stand without holding.

HOW TO RIDE THE COLT.

When you want him to start do not touch him on the side with your heel or do anything to frighten him and make him jump. But speak to him kindly, and if he does not start pull him a little to the left until he starts, and then let him walk off slowly with the reins loose. Walk him around in the stable a few times until he gets used to the bit, and you can turn him about in every direction and stop him as you please. It would be well to get on and off a good many times until he gets perfectly used to it before you take him out of the stable.

After you have trained him in this way, which should not take you more than one or two hours, you can ride him any where you choose without ever having him jump or make any effort to throw you.

When you first take him out of the stable be very gentle with him, as he will feel a little more at liberty to jump or run, and be a little easier frightened than he was while in the stable. But after handling him so much in the stable he will be pretty well broke, and you will be able to manage him without trouble or danger.

When you first mount him take a little the shortest hold on the left rein, so that if any thing frightens him you can prevent him jumping by pulling his head around to you. This operation of pulling a horse's head around against his side will prevent any horse from jumping ahead, rearing up, or running away. If he is stubborn and will not go you can make him move by pulling his head around to one side, when whipping would have no effect. And turning him around a few times will make him dizzy, and then by letting him have his head straight, and giving him a little touch with the whip, he will go along without any trouble.

Never use martingales on a colt when you first ride him; every movement of the hand should go right to the bit in the direction in which it is applied to the reins, without a martingale to change the direct of the force applied. You can guide the colt much better without them, and learn him the use of the bit in much less time. Besides, martingales would prevent you from pulling his head around if he should try to jump.

After your colt has been rode until he is gentle and well accustomed to the bit, you may find it an advantage if he carries his head too high, or his nose too far out, to put martingales on him.

You should be careful not to ride your colt so far at first as to heat, worry or tire him. Get off as soon as you see he is a little fatigued; gentle him and let him rest, this will make him kind to you and prevent him from getting stubborn or mad.

THE PROPER WAY TO BIT A COLT.

Farmers often put bitting harness on a colt the first thing they do to him, buckling up the bitting as tight as they can draw it to make him carry his head high, and then turn him out in a lot to run a half day at a time. This is one of the worst punishments that they could inflict on the colt, and very injurious to a young horse that has been used to running in pasture with his head down. I have seen colts so injured in this way that they never got over it.

A horse should be well accustomed to the bit before you put on the bitting harness, and when you first bit him you should only rein his head up to that point where he naturally holds it, let that be high or low; he will soon learn that he cannot lower his head, and that raising it a little will loosen the bit in his mouth. This will give him the idea of raising his head to loosen the bit, and then you can draw the bitting a little tighter every time you put it on, and he will still raise his head to loosen it; by this means you will gradually get his head and neck in the position you want him to carry it, and give him a nice and graceful carriage without hurting him, making him mad, or causing his mouth to get sore.

If you put the bitting on very tight the first time, he cannot raise his head enough to loosen it, but will bear on it all the time, and paw, sweat and throw himself. Many horses have been killed by falling backward with the bitting on, their heads being drawn up, strike the ground with the whole weight of the body. Horses that have their heads drawn up tightly should not have the bitting on more than fifteen or twenty minutes at a time.

HOW TO DRIVE A HORSE THAT IS VERY WILD, AND HAS ANY VICIOUS HABIT

Take up one fore foot and bend his knee till his hoof is bottom upwards, and merely touching his body, then slip a loop over his knee, and up until it comes above the pasture joint to keep it up, being careful to draw the loop together between the hoof and pasture joint with a second strap of some kind, to prevent the loop from slipping down and coming off. This will leave the horse standing on three legs; you can now handle him as you wish, for it is utterly impossible for him to kick in this position. There is something in this operation of taking up one foot that conquers a horse quicker and better than any thing else you can do to him. There is no process in the world equal to it to break a kicking horse, for several reasons. First, there is a principle of this kind in the nature of the horse; that by conquering one member you conquer to a great extent the whole horse.

You have perhaps seen men operate upon this principle by sewing a horse's ears together to prevent him from kicking. I once saw a plan given in a newspaper to make a bad horse stand to be shod, which was to fasten down one ear. There were no reasons given why you should do so; but I tried it several times, and thought it had a good effect--though I would not recommend its use, especially stitching his ears together. The only benefit arising from this process is, that by disarranging his ears we draw his attention to them, and he is not so apt to resist the shoeing. By tying up one foot we operate on the same principle to a much better effect. When you first fasten up a horse's foot he will sometimes get very mad, and strike with his knee, and try every possible way to get it down; but he cannot do that, and will soon give it up.

This will conquer him better than anything you could do, and without any possible danger of hurting himself or you either, for you can tie up his foot and sit down and look at him until he gives up. When you find that he is conquered, go to him, let down his foot, rub his leg with your hand, caress him and let him rest a little, then put it up again. Repeat this a few times, always putting up the same foot, and he will soon learn to travel on three legs so that you can drive him some distance. As soon as he gets a little used to this way of traveling, put on your harness and hitch him to a sulky. If he is the worst kicking horse that ever raised a foot you need not be fearful of his doing any damage while he has one foot up, for he cannot kick, neither can he run fast enough to do any harm. And if he is the wildest horse that ever had harness on, and has run away every time he has been hitched, you can now hitch him in a sulky and drive him as you please. And if he wants to run you can let him have the lines, and the whip too, with perfect safety, for he cannot go but a slow gait on three legs, and will soon be tired and willing to stop; only hold him enough to guide him in the right direction, and he will soon be tired and willing to stop at the word. Thus you will effectually cure him at once of any further notion of running off. Kicking horses have always been the dread of every body; you always hear men say, when they speak about a bad horse, "I don't care what he does, so he don't kick." This new method is an effectual cure for this worst of all habits. There are plenty of ways by which you can hitch a kicking horse and force him to go, though he kicks all the time; but this don't have any good effect towards breaking him, for we know that horses kick because they are afraid of what is behind them, and when they kick against it and it hurts them they will only kick the harder, and this will hurt them still more and make them remember the scrape much longer, and make it still more difficult to persuade them to have any confidence in any thing dragging behind them ever after.

But by this new method you can hitch them to a rattling sulky, plow, wagon, or anything else in its worst shape. They may be frightened at first, but cannot kick or do any thing to hurt themselves, and will soon find that you do not intend to hurt them, and then they will not care any thing more about it. You can then let down the leg and drive along gently without any farther trouble. By this new process a bad kicking horse can be learned to go gentle in harness in a few hours' time.

ON BALKING.

Horses know nothing about balking, only as they are brought into it by improper management, and when a horse balks in harness it is generally from some mismanagement, excitement, confusion, or from not knowing how to pull, but seldom from any unwillingness to perform all that he understands. High spirited, free going horses are the most subject to balking, and only so because drivers do not properly understand how to manage this kind. A free horse in a team may be so anxious to go that when he hears the word he will start with a jump, which will not move the load, but give him such a severe jerk on the shoulders that he will fly back and stop the other horse; the teamster will continue his driving without any cessation, and by the time he has the slow horse started again he will find that the free horse has made another jump, and again flew back, and now he has them both badly balked, and so confused that neither of them knows what is the matter, or how to start the load. Next will come the slashing and cracking of the whip, and hallooing of the driver, till something is broken or he is through with his course of treatment. But what a mistake the driver commits by whipping his horse for this act. Reason and common sense should teach him that the horse was willing and anxious to go, but did not know how to start the load. And should he whip him for that? If so, he should whip him again for not knowing how to talk. A man that wants to act with any rationality or reason should not fly into a passion, but should always think before he strikes. It takes a steady pressure against the collar to move a load, and you cannot expect him to act with a steady, determined purpose while you are whipping him. There is hardly one balking horse in five hundred that will pull true from whipping; it is only adding fuel to fire, and will make them more liable to balk another time. You always see horses that have been balked a few times, turn their heads and look back, as soon as they are a little frustrated. This is because they have been whipped and are afraid of what is behind them. This is an invariable rule with balked horses, just as much as it is for them to look around at their sides when they have the bots; in either case they are deserving of the same sympathy and the same kind, rational treatment.

When your horse balks, or is a little excited, if he wants to start quickly, or looks around and don't want to go, there is something wrong, and needs kind he treatment immediately. Caress him kindly, and if he don't understand at once what you want him to do he will not be so much excited as to jump and break things, and do everything wrong through fear. As long as you are calm and can keep down the excitement of the horse, there are ten chances to have him understand you, where there would not be one under harsh treatment, and then the little _flare up_ would not carry with it any unfavorable recollections, and he would soon forget all about it, and learn to pull true. Almost every wrong act the horse commits is from mismanagement, fear or excitement; one harsh word will so excite a nervous horse as to increase his pulse ten beats in a minute.