300 Western Live-stock Management 
alike. What 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 sixty 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 enter 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 
