COLT-BREAKING.
Colt-breaking is the best possible lesson for the rider.--The
head-stall.--The snaffle.--Longeing.--Saddling.--Mounting.--Sermon to
the colt-breaker.--The noblest horse resists the most.--The horse has
a natural _right_ to resist.--The colt wants no suppling.--He wants
to be taught the meaning of your indications.--And to be brought to
obey them.--The leaping-bar.--Fetch and carry.
[Sidenote: Colt-breaking the best lesson for riding.]
The very best lesson for a horseman, young or old, is colt-breaking; and
if in the attempt the _young_ horseman fails to do the colt justice, he
will at least do him less injury than the country colt-breaker, or the
generality of grooms.
I shall detail the plan of an _old_ horseman; though, perchance, its
want of "dresses, scenery, and decoration" may offend, my chief
implements being a stick, some string, and some carrots.
I have always said that the colt is half broken when he will come to
your whistle or call in the field, and eat carrots out of your hand; and
that he is quite broken when you have got the head-stall on him.
[Sidenote: The head-stall.]
The colt _should_ wear a head-stall from the earliest days, and be held
by the head while he is rubbed and caressed. If this has been neglected,
get him into a loose box; take the front off the head-stall, described
page 125. Do not (as is the common error in this and in bridling) face
the colt, and hold out the head-stall with both hands, as if you
_wished_ to frighten him; but keep the head-stall in your left hand,
caress the colt with your right hand, and, with your right shoulder to
his left shoulder, pass the right hand under his jaws on to the front
part of his head. Bring the left hand up to the right, and, with a hand
on each cheek-strap, pass the top over the ears on to the neck, _if you
can_. Fasten the throat-lash tight enough to prevent its being rubbed
over the ears. Tie a piece of cord, a yard long, to the off side, D, of
the head-stall; pass the cord through the near side, D. Accustom the
colt to see and to be held by this. It is very powerful, as it forms a
slip knot round his nose, and prevents his pulling with the top of his
head; and it keeps the two cheek-straps back, which otherwise might
injure the colt's eyes. When he is used to the short cord, tie a long
knotted cord to it. Use gloves when you first take the colt out, and
place yourself so that if he bolts you may pull him sideways gradually
into a circle.
[Sidenote: The snaffle.]
To get him to lead, place him between you and a fence; keep abreast of
his shoulder, and show the stick towards his croupe. When he is
subjected to the cord, take a snaffle-bit with a piece of string to each
eye (what is called a =T= is best), tie it to the off side, D, hold the
nose-band with the right hand, take the snaffle with the left, induce
him to open his mouth by passing the thumb between his lips on to the
_bars_ (part _bare_ of teeth), place the snaffle in his mouth, and tie
it to the near side, D. If you have any difficulty, a long string may be
used to the near side of the snaffle, and passed through the D. If the
colt runs back you still hold him with the snaffle under the jaws. When
bridled tie a piece of string from eye to eye of the snaffle, so as to
hang under the chin; fasten the long cord to this and lead him by it,
and use him to be held by this chin-strap. By the common method, he is
never held by the mouth till he is mounted.
Next tie a piece of cord round his girthing place, the two ends on the
ridge of his back. Make a rein of string and tie it with these ends just
tight enough to prevent the colt grazing; you may then pick grass and
give it to him, whistling at the same time. He will soon follow you
loose, play by your side, leap fences, and come to your whistle like a
dog.
To accustom the colt to be tied by the head, pass the long cord over a
gate, and slacken and tighten as may be required.
Ask leave of the colt to hang your tackle in his hovel; or if he lives
in a field, lay it in the hedge to be ready whenever you can spare time
"to go for a walk" with him.
For these lessons, and as far as possible for all lessons, the law
should be dulcia sunto; but after teaching your child its alphabet in
ginger-bread, the time must come when he must go to school.
[Sidenote: Longeing.]
The simplest act of obedience is longeing. In longeing you should walk a
circle inside the colt's circle. The long stick should be constantly
held up towards his croupe, to keep him on, but ready to be shown
towards his head to keep him out. When you stop, and lower the stick,
the colt comes in for a piece of carrot. The long cord should never be
tight. If the colt's head is pulled in and his croupe driven out of the
circle, mental sulks and muscular mischief must ensue. Nothing so surely
generates spavins, curbs, and thorough-pins. When skilful, you may make
the colt change without stopping, or longe a figure of =8=. This may be
done, even without the long cord, by the centripetal force of carrots
and the centrifugal force of the stick. When this is done in the open
field it looks like mesmerism or magic. When in this way you have made
the colt thoroughly to love, honour, and obey you, the saddling,
mounting, and riding, follow almost of course.
[Sidenote: Saddling.]
[Sidenote: Mounting.]
Without stirrups, and with only one girth turned over the seat, place
the pummel of the saddle on your right shoulder, and your right hand
under its cantle, caress the colt with your left hand, and do not
attempt to put the saddle on him till your left shoulder touches his.
When girthed tie the string surcingle over the saddle; besides holding
the reins, it now prevents the flaps flying up. When used to this, use
him to the stirrups. Mount in a loose box with three girths, the head
tied loosely to the saddle and a second snaffle bridle. Fill your
pockets with tares or hay and feed him from his back. Out of doors mount
while the colt is browsing a hedge. Quiet riding must do the rest, the
main thing to keep the colt straight on, or to turn him, being the stick
shown instantly on either side by the turn of the wrist.
Thus far the _practice_ of colt-breaking; and in this way the colt will
be very easily _tackled_: I do not expect so easily to tackle his rider,
but I will try.
[Sidenote: Sermon to the colt-breaker.]
[Sidenote: The noblest horse resists the most.]
[Sidenote: Has a _right_ to resist.]
As Lord Pembroke remarks in his admirable treatise, his hand is the best
who gets his horse to do what he wishes with the least force, whose
indications are so clear that his horse cannot mistake them, and whose
gentleness and fearlessness alike induce obedience to them. The noblest
animal will obey such a rider, as surely as he will disregard the
poltroon, or rebel against the savage. I say the noblest, because it is
ever the noblest among them which rebel the most. For the dominion of
man over the horse is an usurped dominion. And in riding a colt, or a
restive horse, we should never forget that he has by nature the _right_
to resist; and that, _at least, as far as he can judge_, we have not
the right to insist.
When the stag is taken in the toils, the hunter feels neither surprise
nor anger at his struggles and alarm; and indeed he would be very
unreasonable were he to chastise the poor animal on account of them. But
there is no more reason in nature why a horse should submit, without
resistance, to be ridden, than the stag to be slain--why the horse
should give up his liberty to us, than the stag his life. In both cases
our "wish is father to the deed." And if our arrogance insinuates that a
bountiful Nature created these animals simply for our service, assuredly
bountiful Nature left them in ignorance of the fact. And it is to the
sportsman and the colt-breaker that we must apply, if we wish to know
whose victims are the most willing. Not to the cockney casuist, whose
knowledge of the stag is confined to his venison, and who never trusts
himself on the horse till it has been "long trained, in shackles, to
procession pace." If he did, he would find that the unfettered
four-year-old shows precisely the same alarm and resistance to the
halter as the stag does to the toils; and in breaking horses, the thing
to be aimed at, next to the power of indicating our wishes, is the power
of winning obedience to those wishes. These, and these only, are the two
things to be aimed at, from the putting the first halter on the colt, to
his performance of the pirouette renversée au galop--which is perhaps
the most perfect trial and triumph of the most exquisitely finished
horsemanship, and in which the horse must exert every faculty of his
mind to discover, and every muscle of his body to execute, the wishes of
his rider.
[Sidenote: The colt needs no suppling.]
[Sidenote: He wants to know your meaning.]
[Sidenote: And that he must obey.]
It is a vulgar error--an abuse of terms--the mere jargon of jockeyship,
to say that the horse needs _suppling_ to perform this, or any other air
of the manége, or anything else that man can make him do; all that he
wants is to be made acquainted with the wishes of his rider, and
inspired with the desire to execute them. For example, among the
innumerable antics which I have seen fresh young troopers go through,
when being led to and from the farrier's shop, I have seen them perform
this very air, the pirouette renversée au galop to the right, round the
man who leads them; I have seen them perform the figure perfectly, with
the exception that, instead of the right nostril leading, the head and
neck have been straight on the diameter of the circle. At the same time
détacher l'aiguillette, and mingle courbettes, ballotades, and even
cabrioles with it,--combinations which La Broue, the Duke of Newcastle,
De la Guerinière, or Pellier would scarcely dream of. This a horse will
do in the gaiety of his heart, and without requiring any suppling; take
the same horse into the school, follow him with the whip, and try to
_make_ him do it, he will think you a most unreasonable person; he will
by no means be able to discover your meaning, and will, if you press
him, finish by being exceedingly sulky. Mount him, and try to indicate
your wishes to him through the medium of your hands, legs, and whip, or
if you prefer the terms, to give him their _aid_ and _support_. I will
venture to say that you will be nearer two years than one, before you
can get him to do what he has not only done but done for his own
delight. In the mean time, if during his two years of _suppling_ you
have never given him a false indication or ever forced him, he will be
no more stiff than when he first began to be _suppled_. But if, as a
million riders out of a million and one would have done, you have been
in the constant habit of doing both, the horse will long ago have become
as stiff as a piece of wood. Is it to be supposed that the best suppled
manége horse is more supple than the colt at the foot of his dam? Can
any one who has watched his pranks think so? How often have I been told
by a rider to observe how supple his horse's neck had become! That he
could now get his horse's head round to his knee, whereas he could not
at first accomplish more than to see his horse's eye. If the same horse,
loose, wished to scratch his shoulder or his ribs, would he not
forthwith do it with his teeth?
When a cabriolet or cart is turned in a narrow street or road, the horse
is forced to make half a pirouette, without any questions being asked as
to his capabilities or suppleness; and the rein being pulled strongest
on one side, the whip applied on the other, the shafts to prevent his
turning short, and with evident reason why he cannot go a-head, he sees
what is required, and does it without difficulty; but the same horse
will not do the same mounted, in the middle of a grass-field, with
nothing but his rider's _aids_ to bias him, or to indicate what is
required of him. Why? either because he can't understand your _aids_, or
you can't enforce obedience to them: these will be the reasons, not his
want of suppleness.
The great thing in horsemanship is to get your horse to be of your
party--not only to obey, but to obey willingly. For this reason a young
horse cannot be begun with too early, and his lessons cannot be too
gradually progressive. The great use of longeing is, not that it supples
your horse--it is a farce to suppose that--but that, next to leading, it
is the easiest act of obedience which you can exact from him. In this
way it is an admirable lesson.
[Sidenote: The leaping-bar.]
Placing the colt between the pillars of the stall is admirable as a
lesson of submission and obedience; by degrees he may be even cleaned
there. The brush acts as the urging indication; the reins inform him
that he is not to advance; the result is that he collects himself to
the bit. Here, then, the common theory would make him to be taken up and
collected, not between the hands and legs, not "dans la main et dans les
talons," but dans the sides of the stall and dans the horse brush. It is
precisely the same as putting the horse between the pillars in a manége,
which is an admirable explanatory practice to a horse. With the whip in
skilful hands, the sides of the stall give infinite advantage over the
pillars in the manége; both teach the horse the same lesson, namely,
that when urged up to the bit--that is, when urged and retained at the
same time--these contradictory indications mean that he is required to
collect himself. Anything which facilitates the understanding of this
bit of information is of infinite value; for the colt, like the satyr in
the fable, is apt to kick against this blowing hot and blowing cold at
the same time. Mount the colt, and try these opposite indications; he
will do anything but obey them, anything but collect himself. If you
insist, he will resist. He will end in overt acts of rebellion, or at
least in dogged sulks; and that from not understanding, or not choosing
to obey your _aids_, not from want of suppleness. Let art supple the
temper and understanding of the colt, and leave nature to supple his
limbs. By holding the colt's head against a wall by the chin-strap, he
may be made to pass sideways to either hand by showing him the whip. He
should also be taught to rein back; this is best done in a narrow
gangway. The leaping-bar is a good exercise of obedience. The bar itself
should be only six feet long; the posts which support it should be four
feet six inches high; the side-rails thirty feet in length, and they
should slope down to three feet; they should rest on the tops of the
posts, and be flush with them, and perfectly smooth, so that the long
cord may pass freely over them without catching. The colt should walk
half way up the gangway, thence a slow trot. Pass the reins of the
snaffle through the left eye of the snaffle, and fasten the long cord to
them. Hold the right rein close to where it passes through the eye, it
will clasp the lower jaw like a slip-knot and give you great power. All
over-fresh horses should be led in this way; without it a horse will
pull with the top of his head with force sufficient to beat any man.
Keep the bar low, or even on the ground, as long as the horse is
nervous.
The whole affair of colt-breaking is an affair of patience, you cannot
have too much forbearance: put off the evil day of force. Forgive him
seventy times seven times a-day, and be assured that what does not come
to-day will to-morrow. The grand thing is to get rid of dogged sulks and
coltishness; of that wayward, swerving, hesitating gait, which says,
"here's my foot, and there's my foot;" or, "there is a lion in the
street, I cannot go forth." This is the besetting sin of colts; and this
it is which, on the turf, gives so great an advantage to a young horse
to have another to _make play_, or _cut out the running_ for him. For
this indisposition to go freely forward results as well from their
seeing no necessity to give up their will to yours, as from their
incapacity to perceive and obey the indications of their rider without
swerving, shifting the leg, &c., and additional labour to themselves.
All this is spared to the young horse by the follow-my-leader system.
Everything should be resorted to to avoid alarm on the colt's side and
force on the man's, and gradually to induce familiarity and cheerful
obedience--to reconcile him to the melancholy change from gregarious
liberty to a solitary stall and a state of slavery. I should say that he
is the best colt-breaker who soonest inspires him with the animus
eundi--who soonest gets him to go freely straight forward--who soonest,
and with least force, gets the colt without company five miles along the
road from home. Violence never did this yet; but violence increases his
reluctance, and makes it last ten times longer. Indeed, it causes the
colt to stiffen and defend himself, and this never is got rid of. It is
true that by force you may make him your sullen slave, but that is not
the object; the object is to make him your willing subject. Above all
things, do not be perpetually playing the wolf to him; deal in rewards
where it is possible, and in punishment only where it cannot be
avoided. Be assured that the system will _answer_.
Crede mihi, res est ingeniosa _dare_.
It is, no doubt, our duty to create the happiness and to prevent the
misery of every living thing; but with our horse this is also a matter
of _policy_. The colt should be caressed, rubbed, and spoken to kindly.
He should be fed from the hand with anything he may fancy, such as
carrot, or apple, or sugar, and be made to come for it when whistled to
or called by name.
"Quis expedivit Psittaco suum ~chaire~?...
Venter."
[Sidenote: Fetch and carry.]
On an unlittered part of the stable, with the horse loose, throw pieces
of carrot on the floor; he will learn to watch your hand like a dog.
Then tie a piece of carrot to a piece of stick. When he lifts this push
a piece of carrot between his lips where there are no teeth, and take
the stick from his mouth. He will soon learn to pick up your stick,
whip, glove, or handkerchief, and to bring it in exchange for the
reward; or when mounted, will put his head back to place it in your
hand.
Stand on the outside of a door which opens towards you. Show the horse
carrots through the opening: he will push the door open to get the
carrot. By always repeating the word "door," he will soon open or shut a
door at command, or a gate, even when mounted.
These may be "foolish things to all the wise," but nothing is useless
which familiarises the horse, which increases the confidence and
intimacy between him and his rider, or which teaches him to look to man
for the indications of his will, and to obey them, whether from fear,
interest, or attachment.