Take up one fore foot and bend his knee till his hoof is bottom upwards,
and nearly touching his body; then slip a loop over his knee, and up
until it comes above the pastern joint, to keep it up, being careful to
draw the loop together between the hoof and pastern 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 anything 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 that 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 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 travelling,
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.
If he wants to run, you can let him have the lines, and the whip too,
with perfect safety, for he can 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 everybody; 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 anything dragging behind them
ever after.
But by this new method you can hitch them to a rattling sulky, plough,
wagon, or anything else in its worst shape. They may be frightened at
first, but cannot kick or do anything to hurt themselves, and will soon
find that you do not intend to hurt them, and then they will not care
anything more about it. You can then let down the leg and drive along
gently without any further trouble. By this new process a bad kicking
horse can be learned to go gently in harness in a few hours’ time.