H E -:- H O R S E 



CHAPTER IX. 



Breaking a colt to the saddle — A short method of taming 

 and training — How the colt is taught to tolerate handling — 

 How he is saddled and cinched the £rst time — How he is 

 ridden. 



A number of horses are running wild in a 

 pasture, perhaps several o£ them are from 

 two to five years of age. Four years of age 

 is the best time at which to break a horse, 

 because at that age he is young enough to be 

 tractable, while his bone and tendon are so 

 adequately developed as not easily to be in- 

 jured. These horses may never have felt 

 restraint of any kind save that of the fence 

 that bounds the pasture, nor have known any 

 laws other than those that nature taught 

 them. 



Of course, wherever there are horses now- 

 adays, man also is near. But the unbroken 

 colt's knowledge of the human being is 

 limited to an occasional glimpse at one and 

 that vague hereditary fear which most wild 

 things feel toward man. 



One of these horses in our pasture has the 

 appearance of being fast and intelligent, and 

 of having excellent action. It is decided to 

 make of him a riding horse, to change this 

 raw material into the finished product — a 

 perfectly broken saddle animal. 



Several men on horseback enter the pasture 



75 



