300 Western Live-stock Management 



alike. Wha^ applies to one will not of necessity apply to 

 another. However, since the western range produces 

 a class of horses that are of exceptional individual merit 

 through the use of good sires, it is well to give a system of 

 management which many western horsemen have tried 

 and recommended as the best. The range horses are not 

 handled until from three to five years of age, and their 

 only acquaintanceship with man being at the time they 

 were branded and castrated, they are naturally wild. The 

 horses are quietly rounded up and driven to the corral. 

 One of the horses to be handled is then worked out of the 

 bunch into the catching pen, which is a round corral 

 built of poles. It is usually fifty or sLxty feet in diameter, 

 and the sides should be at least ten or twelve feet high. 

 When the horse has been driven into the corral, the two 

 men who are to conduct the work of gentling en,ter as 

 quietly as possible. The lariat rope is hung on a short, 

 strong wire on the side of the corral, and the man handling 

 it steps back to the center of the ring, pulling the rope 

 tight enough to hold the noose about three feet from the 

 ground. The assistant then drives the horses around the 

 corral. Instinctively the horse keeps to the outside 

 whether trotting or loping, and goes into the running 

 noose with his forelegs, striking the top of the noose 

 with his breast. The man handling the rope quickly 

 draws it tight, thereby drawing the horse's front legs 

 together and dropping him in a heap on the soft dirt of 

 the corral. 



As soon as the horse is down, the assistant kneels 

 on his head, thereby holding him down. He may also" 

 blindfold the horse by dropping a piece of blanket over 

 his head. The hobbles are placed upon him and he is 

 allowed to get up. These hobbles have a padded strap 



