208 APPENDIX. 



and quick until you make your point, and then all you will have to do 

 will be to hold it until the horse becomes cool and the excitement to 

 the nervous system wears off. There is what may appear to be a 

 curious contradiction, but nevertheless it is true, that those horses most 

 known and noted for their viciousness, that are called the worst horses, 

 are in most instances easiest to break. 



Wild Pete, of Petroleum Center, a nine-year-old horse, so wild and 

 bad that he resisted all efforts to break him to harness, yielded to my 

 treating in one hour, and has been used as a family carriage-horse since 

 (over four years). The Bill Press horse, of Gowanda, N. Y., a wildish, 

 reckless, runaway kicker, spoiled by bad management, resisted all ef- 

 forts to subdue and control him in harness. Press, the owner, was in- 

 credulous when I proposed hitching him in harness in twenty minutes. 

 He said he and four of the best horsemen of his township (Gowanda, 

 which is noted for its sharp, skillful horsemen), worked a half a day 

 with him, and utterly failed ; he said ten men could not put him in 

 shafts. I drove him in fifteen minutes all alone, and in an hour's 

 time broke him thoroughly. The Buffalo Omnibus Co. horse, referred to 

 in paper, was completely subdued and reformed by me in twenty minutes. 

 The famous Malone horse, of Cleveland, was under perfect control in 

 less than an hour. When in Columbus, O., a seven-year-old horse out 

 of Cruiser, that had resisted all efforts to break, and was supposed to 

 be worthless, yielded to my treatment in twenty minutes, and remained 

 perfectly gentle afterwards. A seven-year-old Gold Dust mare, owned 

 by McVay in Mansfield, O., and purchased by him of L. L. Dorsey, the 

 breeder of Kentucky. This mare was a natural kicker, was sold by 

 Dorsey to McVay, when three years old, as an incorrigible kicker. She 

 had resisted the most persistent and skillful efforts to subdue and break 

 her, and was truly a bad mare, all soils of treatment having failed 

 upon her, yet forty minutes' treatment, with careful, gentle handling 

 and driving for a few days, completely reformed her. I could multiply 

 cases of this kind in my long experience by the hundred, to show the 

 curious extremes in horses, and I refer to them here to remind you 

 that you are not to measure your success by the management of such 

 cases. The most skill and the most effort will often be demanded in 

 the management of cases that are not known to be bad or vicious. 



It is the cool, almost calculating fighter — the mare that seems gentle 

 in all places but one, a«d then she is, perhaps, lightning itself in hang- 

 ing on, in contesting the efforts ; perhaps it is the balker, that will re- 

 sist only at one point, at all others a splendid worker. Some minor 

 defect of character in an otherwise gentle, willing worker. One horse 

 will, perhaps, pull on one rein. Another will kick if the rein is 

 caught under the tail, can't be shod, etc. While the average of these 

 minor habits yield readily to treatment — a matter, perhaps, of a few 

 minutes' work — you may find cases that will call for more real skill 

 and effort to break up than is necessary to break horses regarded and 

 known to be very bad. If you find one of these give-and-take treach- 

 erous cases, you must make your point clear and sure; make your 

 fight quick and decisive if you can, and always in the position and 



