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.