CATCHING A HORSE. 165 



by means of a stick or pole, pass a blanket or similar article 

 over the horse's head, so as to blindfold him. We may then 

 put on the twitch over the cloth, and after we have ad- 

 justed it, we may remove the cloth from underneath it. 

 With the twitch on, the man who holds it is safe from 

 being bitten by the horse, or from being struck by a fore 

 leg. If the attempt to blindfold the animal makes him, as 

 it sometimes will do, outrageously violent, and if he also 

 furiously resists any approach being made to his head ; 

 we may obtain control by applying the noose-twitch (see 

 Fig. 44). The great difficulty I had experienced in going 

 up to some of the wild horses I had to break in South 

 Africa, prompted me to invent this twitch. In getting it 

 or the rope-twitch on the horse, we may expedite matters 

 and save ourselves from being bitten, by putting a stick 

 into the horse's mouth. He will seldom offer resistance 

 to this being done. In fact he will generally like to 

 get the stick between his teeth. Its presence in his mouth 

 will greatly help to distract his attention from his breaker, 

 and will consequently make him less troublesome than he 

 might otherwise be to handle. Although the noose-twitch 

 is not so effective as Pratt's rope-twitch (see page 120), 

 the fact remains that its power is ample for control in 

 this case. With either the noose-twitch or rope-twitch 

 applied, and with a rope attached to a fore pastern, we 

 may consider that the most vicious horse in the world 

 is entirely at our disposal. At this period or even before 

 it, I have known horses throw themselves down from 

 combined rage and obstinacy at finding that they were 

 mastered. If the horse adopts this defence, tying his 

 head to his tail and keeping him in that position (see Fig. 

 78) until he has "given in," will, I have found, be the 

 readiest and most effective means of taking the " non- 

 sense " out of him. If he does not try to defeat us in the 



