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; by this means you will gradually get his head and neck in the position you want him to carry it, and give him a nice and graceful carriage without hurting him, making him mad, or causing his mouth to get sore.

If you put the bitting on very tight the first time, he cannot raise his head enough to loosen it, but will bear on it all the time, and paw, sweat and throw himself.  Many horses have been killed by falling backward with the bitting on, their heads being drawn up, strike the ground with the whole weight of the body.  Horses that have their heads drawn up tightly should not have the bitting on more than fifteen or twenty minutes at a time.

HOW TO DRIVE A HORSE THAT IS VERY WILD, AND HAS ANY VICIOUS HABIT

Take up one fore foot and bend his knee till his hoof is bottom upwards, and merely touching his body, then slip a loop over his knee, and up until it comes above the pasture joint to keep it up, being careful to draw the loop together between the hoof and pasture joint with a second strap of some kind, to prevent the loop from slipping down and coming off.  This will leave the horse standing on three legs; you can now handle him as you wish, for it is utterly impossible for him to kick in this position.  There is something in this operation of taking up one foot that conquers a horse quicker and better than any thing else you can do to him.  There is no process in the world equal to it to break a kicking horse, for several reasons.  First, there is a principle of this kind in the nature of the horse; that by conquering one member you conquer to a great extent the whole horse.

You have perhaps seen men operate upon this principle by sewing a horse’s ears together to prevent him from kicking.  I once saw a plan given in a newspaper to make a bad horse stand to be shod, which was to fasten down one ear.  There were no reasons given why you should do so; but I tried it several times, and thought it had a good effect—­though I would not recommend its use, especially stitching his ears together.  The only benefit arising from this process is, that by disarranging his ears we draw his attention to them, and he is not so apt to resist the shoeing.  By tying up one foot we operate on the same principle to a much better effect.  When you first fasten up a horse’s foot he will sometimes get very mad, and strike with his knee, and try every possible way to get it down; but he cannot do that, and will soon give it up.