STOPPING AT TOUCH OF WHIP ON BACK.
Accustom your horse to stop short, whether at the pull on the reins, the touch of the whip, or the word “Whoa.”
After riding have the saddle removed, and should a puffy spot appear on the back where it has pressed, take the hint at once and have the padding eased over the place, or a tedious and vexatious “saddle-gall” may result. There is no better treatment for such a spot than bathing with very hot water. As a preventive, however, it is an excellent plan to bathe the back with cold water, afterwards carefully rubbing dry.
THE WALK (COLT IN TRAINING).
The several instruments of torture represented in the above cut are the dumb-jockey upon the horse’s back, the cavesson around his nose, and the lunging-cord in the hands of the groom—to whom the artist has very properly given the countenance of one who, had he lived in old times, would have lent a hand at the rack or the iron boot without wincing. The dumb-jockey has elastic reins, which are adjusted so as to hold the head in the proper position. The cavesson is a broad leather band, stiffened with iron, which is fastened around the nose just where the cartilage joins the bone, so that a tug upon it causes great pain, and will bring anything but determined vice to submission. These appliances are usually only the resort of laziness or ignorance, for none of them can for a moment compare with the human hand; and in fact they effect no saving in time, for it is not safe to leave a horse a minute alone with a dumb-jockey on his back, as he may rear and fall over backward at the risk of his life. The writer knew of an accident of this kind which ended the victim’s usefulness in the saddle, and he has seen a strong and proud horse sweat profusely, with the thermometer at ten degrees below the freezing point, while being lunged, i.e., driven in a ring, with a dumb-jockey on.