HOW TO BREAK A COLT 39 



I am proud to say that I have bought dozens of un- 

 manageable horses, mostly from horse-dealers who have 

 failed to effect any cure, and I have always succeeded 

 in breaking these horses so that any nervous driver could 

 drive them in safety. The secret of managing a rough 

 horse is to gain his confidence. The same applies to a 

 circus horse : the trainer must have the horse's confidence 

 before he can educate him or teach him clever tricks. 

 Therefore, if you get the confidence of an ordinary rough 

 horse, it is quite easy to teach him to pull a cart quietly. 

 But how many horsemen know this ? 



Now, in the case of the seven-year-old colt I am 

 training, I wish to make him absolutely quiet ; but seven 

 years of idleness and freedom cannot easily be forgotten 

 in seven days, so I have found it necessary to lay 

 him gently on the ground and handle him all over. 



There are several ways of laying a horse down or 

 throwing him down, but in this particular case I used 

 the leg-strap as recommended by Mr. Calthrop in his 

 book, " The Horse as Comrade and Friend/' I found it 

 the very ideal. When the colt found himself on three 

 legs, and never having laid down in a stable before in 

 his life, he was so perplexed that he pathetically licked 

 my face, rubbed his head on my shoulder and looked to 

 me for help and guidance. He had confidence in me, 



