But a good horse-breaker really does something. He uses intelligence and studies the disposition of his horse, as every one is different and requires different methods—and I wouldn’t attempt to say which is the best. Some cowboys are natural horsemen and seemingly without taking very much pains get wonderful results, while the other fellow will try ever so hard and never get nowhere.
Nearly every state has a different way of starting a young horse. In Montana the first thing we did with a wild horse was to catch him by the front feet and throw him down, and take one hind leg away from him by tying it up so he can’t touch the ground with it (that way he can’t hurt you or himself). He stands on three legs and if he tries to kick or fight he usually falls down. After a few falls he will stand and let you rub him all over his body and legs, and you can saddle and unsaddle him until he finds he can’t get away from you and that you aren’t going to hurt him. That was the system I used and I thought I got very good results.
However, I have seen cowboys use a blindfold on a horse that worked very well, too—using a soft piece of leather or a piece of cloth to put over the horse’s eyes and in that way learned him to stand while they saddled him and got on and off until he gets used to it. But I always preferred the way of letting the horse see what was going on from the first lesson.
But that is just a small part of breaking a horse. In the first place he may have a notion of bucking no matter how careful you have been in handling him, as there is no doubt some horses inherit those different bad habits from their ancestors just like humans do, and if bucking happens to be the favorite way of your horse’s showing his meanness, the cowboy must be able to ride him, as every time a horse bucks his man off he is getting that much nearer to being an outlaw. Then another thing—seldom ever any two horses buck the same. One will have some different twist from the other one. I have seen good riders get on a horse that didn’t seem to buck so hard and would get throwed off. When I used to ride, the hardest for me was one that bucked and whirled around and around.
But the bucking is usually the small part of breaking a horse or at least to make him valuable as a cow horse. Most horse-breakers first start the horse with a hackamore and sometimes never put a bridle on him for a couple of years and then sometimes he is not finished, depending both on what kind of a horse and man they are.