The observations about rope halters are very sound, and in addition I may add, that the mouths of hundreds of horses are spoiled by the practice of passing a looped rope round the lower jaw of a fiery horse, which the rider often makes the stay for keeping himself in his seat.
The best kind of head-stall for training colts is that delineated at the head of this chapter,[48-*] called the Bush Bridle, to which any kind of bit may be attached, and by unbuckling the bit it is converted into a capital halter, with a rope for leading a colt or picketing a horse at night.
The long rope is exactly what Mr. Rarey recommends for teaching a colt to lead. Every one of any experience will agree that “a horse that has once pulled on his halter can never be so well broken as one that has never pulled at all.”
The directions for stroking and patting the body and limbs of a colt are curious, as proving that an operation which we have been in the habit of performing as a matter of course without attaching any particular virtue to it, has really a sort of mesmeric effect in soothing and conciliating a nervous animal. The directions in [Chapter V.] for approaching a colt deserve to be studied very minutely, remembering always the maxim printed at [p. 57]—Fear and anger, a good horseman should never feel.
It took Mr. Rarey himself two hours to halter a savage half-broken colt in Liverpool, but then he had the disadvantage of being surrounded by an impatient whispering circle of spectators. At Lord Poltimore’s seat in Devonshire, in February last (1858), Lord Rivers was two hours alone with a very sulky biting colt, but finally succeeded in haltering and saddling him. Yet his lordship had only seen one lesson illustrated on a very difficult horse at the Duke of Wellington’s school. But this operation is much more easily described than executed, because some colts will smell at your hand one moment, and turn round as quick as lightning, and plant their heels in your ribs if you are not very active, and don’t stand very close to them. On the directions for using the whip, [p. 55], with colts of a stubborn disposition, I can say nothing, never having seen it so employed; but it is evident, that it must be employed with very great discretion.
The directions for haltering are very complete, but to execute them with a colt or horse that paws violently, even in play, with his fore-feet, requires no common agility. But I may mention that I saw Mr. Rarey alone put a bridle on a horse seventeen bands high that was notoriously difficult to bridle even with two men assisting in the operation.
In reference to the hints for treating a colt in a little work from which I have already quoted, a colonel in the Life Guards says, “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. He should wear a head-stall from the beginning, be accustomed to be held and made fast by the head, to give up all four feet, to bear the girthing of a roller, to be led, &c.” But if all this useful preliminary education, in which climbing through gaps after an old hunter, and taking little jumps, be omitted, then the Rarey system comes in to shorten your domesticating labours.
“A wild horse, until tamed, is just as wild and fearful as a wild stag taken for the first time in the toils.
“When a horse hangs back and leads unwillingly, the common error is to get in front of him and pull him. This may answer when the man is stronger than the horse, but not otherwise.
“In leading you should never be further forward than your horse’s shoulder: with your right-hand hold his head in front of you by the bridle close to his mouth or the head-stall, and with your left hand touch him with a whip as far back as you can; if you have not a whip you can use a stirrup-leather.”