Bit (horsemanship)

“ Get the horse "light in hand" by the usual play of the bit, first the curb, then the snaffle, tapping him on the right side, just forward of the girth, if he fails to respond or offers to back.
Now press him just back of the girth with your left heel, at the same time relaxing the rein a little. If he steps forward, pat and praise him, but if not, press him more firmly, at the same time touching him as before with the whip. When he moves forward praise him, and after a few seconds stop him, leaning back a little and laying your whip by a turn of the wrist on his back just behind the saddle. ”

“ If the bull-finch be too strong, the hunter may stick in it, or forcing through it into the ditch on the other side, may leave his owner hanging like a bird's-nest in its branches. An ox-fence—composed of two ditches, a bank, a pair of hedges, and a stiff, low, oak rail—may altogether prove too broad to be cleared. Timber also may be too high to be topped; yet, in all these cases, if the rider be but willing, the noble horse is always ready, ay, eager, to do his very best, and many a broken back and prostrate carcase, divested of its saddle and bridle, has been the melancholy result ”

“ Their rapture is wrought to its pitch, when the horse, maddened with the wounds and terror, the crimson seams streaking his foam-and-sweat whitened body, flies from the still pursuing bull: then are displayed the nerve and horsemanship of the picador. It is a piteous sight to behold the mangled horses treading out their protruding and quivering entrails, and yet carrying off their riders unhurt. ”

“ Again, in the hunting-field, a noble, high-couraged horse, a rusher at any description of fence, the very sight of which seems to inflame his ardour, in most gallant style charges a brook, which when he is in the air he sees is too broad to be cleared. On his chest striking against the bank, and while his rider, delighted at feeling that he is not a bit hurt, is luxuriously rolling over and over on the green grass like a rabbit that at full speed has been shot dead, this gallant steed makes two, three, or four desperate efforts to get to him ”

“ Whether the steeple-chaser on his thoroughbred, or the Indian on his mustang is the better rider, cannot well be decided. The peculiar horsemanship of every country has its manifest advantages, and is the natural outgrowth of, as well as peculiarly adapted to, the climate, roads, and uses to which the horse is put. The cowboy who can defy the bucking broncho will be unseated by a two-year-old which any racing-stable boy can stick to, while this same boy would hardly sit the third stiff boost of the ragged, grass-fed pony. The best horseman of the desert would be nowhere in the hunting-field. ”

“ The half-breed horses, which would not sell in the market for fifty dollars each, are the best in the world for such a campaign. They never stumble, are not frightened at a bit of bad road; under the saddle they will pick their own way, jumping over a log or a small stream with the nimbleness of a deer. ”

“ Winship.
“Yes; but not so many as you would suppose, for the horsemanship, in its particular way, is something wonderful. When an ugly steer is lassoed and he feels the reata or lariat round his neck, he sometimes turns and ‘makes’ for the horse, and unless the vaquero is particularly skilful he will be gored and his horse too; but he gives a dexterous turn to the lariat, the animal steps over it, gets tangled and thrown. Frequently an animal breaks a horn or a leg. Sometimes one fall is not enough; the steer jumps up and pursues the horse. ”

“ A horse should be well accustomed to the bit before you put on the bitting harness, and when you first bit him you should only rein his head up to that point where he naturally holds it, let that be high or low; he will soon learn that he cannot lower his head, and that raising it a little will loosen the bit in his mouth. This will give him the idea of raising his head to loosen the bit, and then you can draw the bitting a little tighter every time you put it on, and he will still raise his head to loosen it ”

“ He was a master of all those strange Indian horseback-feats which shame the tricks of the circus-riders, and used to astonish and almost amuse her sometimes by disappearing from his saddle, like a phantom horseman lying flat against the side of the bounding creature that bore him, as if he were a hunting leopard with his claws in the horse's flank and flattening himself out against his heaving ribs. ”

“ The horse also must be perfectly well trained to these hazardous undertakings, and should obey instantly the slightest pull of the bit; for if the bull turns suddenly upon his pursuer, the chances are ten to one that the horse will be severely wounded. The rider first gallops close to the rear of the bull, and seizing his tail with one hand, gives it a turn or two around his wrist to prevent its slipping. ”

“ For the young horse was of a fidgety habit, and, as though aware of his power, no sooner did his rider extend a hand to catch him than, with a loud snort, he swung wildly round, placing his tail where his head should be. Another attempt, more coaxing, only met with a like result. The exasperating brute would allow the hand to approach within halt a yard of the reim, then would slew round as before.
This trick is a common enough one in the ‘cussedness’ of equine economy. ”

“ The horse instinctively reared itself up on its hind legs, receiving the deadly fangs full in the chest, then whirling round, fell—fell right on to the writhing monster. And the rider?
With rare readiness of nerve and judgment the latter had slid from the saddle at exactly the right fraction of a moment, and now stood contemplating a furious convulsive intermingling of kicking hoofs and heaving coils. One deft slash of the raw-hide whip was capable of cutting the head off the terrible reptile, if only he could get it in. ”

“ In these days it seems dangerous to write or talk about the thoroughbred horse. There are some to whom the very name is anathema, associated in their minds only with short distance racing and the routine of Turf life. To them a thoroughbred horse is full of every equine imperfection—light in bone, faulty in conformation, weak in constitution. Others, again, see in the thoroughbred nothing but good. We have, say they, as good horses as ever we had, and better, and they are as extravagant in their optimism as their opponents are in their pessimism. ”

“ Horsemen, buggies, buck-boards, wagons, as far either way as one can see—and prairie schooners, too, lumbering and pitching in the rear. Away over the rolling prairie they speed, disappearing finally on the distant hills like a lot of scared jackrabbits, now well strung out. Suddenly a trained race-horse goes down—he has learned his first lesson in badger holes. A bullet from his master's gun ends the animal's suffering, and with him goes his master's last chance. ”

“ Now, if a horse is under sixteen hands his size is not mentioned, and all the world is our customer at £5000 or £6000 a horse. And if more people had the skill to ride him, the merits of the thorough-bred horse as a hunter would be better known; though, indeed, under any circumstances, it is but the sweepings of the training stable which descends to the hunting field or private life. ”

“ There were, as it happened, only three pinto horses in the entire saddle stock, and these three were the last left of the entire bunch. Now a little boy or girl, and many an older person, thinks that a spotted horse is the real thing, but practical cattle men know that this freak of color in range-bred horses is the result of in-and-in breeding, with consequent physical and mental deterioration. It was my good fortune that morning to get a good mount of horses,—three sorrels, two grays, two coyotes, a black, a brown, and a grulla. ”

“ Several pack-horses followed the main body, and a couple of peasants, who trudged along as though they lived in constant fear of a whip or a spear-staff falling across their shoulders. Many of the riders carried sacks slung across their saddle-bows, one the carcass of a dead pig, a second a couple of stone bottles, another some half-dozen loaves of rye bread, strung together on a cord like beads. Last of all came three tired hacks, stumping along over the tough heather and ridden by three gaudily dressed women, who were laughing and chattering like starlings on a chimney. ”

“ He cracks his whip; the horses throw up their heads and break into a canter; the cavaliers turn pea-green about the chops, let go the reins and clutch saddle-pommels.
The leading horse, a rakish chestnut, finding his head free at last and being heartily fed-up with the whole business, suddenly bolts out of the manège and legs it across the meadow, en route for stables and tea. ”

“ The young fellows took great delight in showing off their horsemanship, and would dash along, picking up a half-dollar from the ground, stop their horses in full career and turn about on the space of a bullock's hide, and their skill with the lasso was certainly wonderful. At full speed they could cast their lasso about the horns of a bull, or so throw it as to catch any particular foot. These fellows would work all day on horseback in driving cattle or catching wildhorses for a mere nothing, but all the money offered would not have hired one of them to walk a mile. ”

“ Even geldings are never seen, and, as would naturally be expected, the stallions, unless remarkably well-trained, are very vicious, and, worse than all, extremely capricious, springing, or kicking, or halting, without any provocation, and without giving their rider the slightest warning; but, when they are perfectly trained, they are among the finest saddle-horses in the world, they are so fleet and so sure-footed. ”

“ In short, I was borne away by my wounded horse in a manner nearly similar to that which had occurred after one of our skirmishes with the French Hussars in Brittany. I know not why it was, but I felt more excited by this encounter than by the whole day at Minden, and when riding on, seemed still to hear the report of the muskets, and to see them flashing out of the mist before me.
Dropping blood and foam upon the snow with every bound, the poor animal, covered with perspiration and enveloped in a steam induced by the frosty air, carried me a few miles almost at racing speed. ”

“ You should use a large, smooth, snaffle bit, so as not to hurt his mouth, with a bar to each side, to prevent the bit from pulling through either way. This you should attach to the head-stall of your bridle, and put it on your colt without any reins to it, and let him run loose in a large stable or shed some time, until he becomes a little used to the bit, and will bear it without trying to get it out of his mouth. ”

“ I cannot conceive such an anomaly as a thorough Yankee horseman. Given—one, or a span of trotters, to be yoked after the neatest fashion, and to be driven gradually and scientifically up to top-speed—the Northerner is quite at home, and can give you a wrinkle or two worth keeping. But this habit of hauling at horses, who often go as much on the bit as on the traces, is destructive to "hands." ”

“ They collect a herd, single out several, gallop after them on horseback; and he who is most skilful, catches the bull by the tail, passes it under his own right leg, turns it round the high pummel of his saddle, and wheeling his horse round at right angles by a sudden movement, the bull falls on his face. ”

“ These men were most inconsequent in their proceedings, wheeling round me at a gallop, singing, or rather howling, firing their long guns, throwing themselves into one stirrup and nearly off their horses, and one who rides without a bridle came up behind me with his horse bolting and nearly knocked me out of the saddle with the long barrel of his gun. When the village of Charmi came in sight I signed to them to go on, and we all rode at a gallop, the horsemen uttering wild cries and going through the pantomime of firing over the left shoulders and right flanks of their horses. ”

“ The racing stables are enabled to contest for more purses and so increase their earnings. There is a greater demand for race-horses, so the breeders have a larger and a better market. But, after all, the sport of racing is only permitted because it tends to improve the breed of horses; not race-horses alone, but because the Thoroughbred, when crossed with other strains and types, tends to improve those types. Now, does the blood of the new-fashioned horse assimilate so well with the common blood as that of the more compact, and possibly sturdier, horse of thirty or fifty years ago? ”

“ Nor does he who wishes a cart horse choose the same conformation or give the same training as to a horse intended for the saddle or the carriage: for as the one desires mettle for military service, the other prefers a gentle disposition for use on the road. It was to provide for this difference of use that the practice of castrating horses was inaugurated, for horses that are altered are of a quieter disposition: they are called geldings, as hogs in the same state are called barrows and chickens are called capons. ”

“ Horse-flesh is held cheap in the upper valleys. It is a poor rancher indeed who has not a dozen or so mounts running in the fields. So the wild horses are not tempting except to the venturesome. The running of these untamed herds is dangerous and to be undertaken only by men of extraordinary prowess as riders and ropers. But for the young bloods who find the round-up tame, the running of wild horses offers excitement worth their mettle. Above all is it a real man's game to go out after the pinto stallion. ”