BITTING AND MANAGEMENT OF A COLT.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1647, 29 March 1884, Page 4

BITTING AND MANAGEMENT OF A COLT.

So many young horses are spoilt by being badly bitted when breaking that our readers will bo indebted to us for giving the opinion of a real professor of the art, none other than the celebrated Dick Christian. No horse can be ridded with absolute comfort that iias not a good mouth and an otherwise good animal has a good deal taken off its price by a defect of this kind. It ■ may be relied upon as a fact that unless his mouth is made quite perfect when a colt is first bitted it will never become so afterwards. All the difference in getting safely and pleasantly across a i country depends on the horse's mouth; I and instead of a mouth like a bull, and 1 a game of pully-hauly by his rider, what a pleasure it is to see a horse with a perfect mouth and a real workman with a finger, on his back, In one of his lectures in " Silk and Scarlet," Dick laid down the laws, and they are bo good and so true that they deserve to I be widely known: "The first two winters," said the wonderful old rough • rider," I like to keep my colts on nice sweet hay and bruised corn: then I put on a nice smooth bit with a ring in the centre and a player on it. The bit i should not be bigger than my thumb, , and that ain't a very big 'un. It should be 4iin. in width and even in the mouth, The headstall should not he too long to let the bit get low in the mouth or lie will get his tongue over the bit, and he will never have a mouth ;n all his born days, You must bear him upright with the bridle rein. Put two jings on each side of i the stallposfc, one 5 and the other 6ft i long, with buckles and billets at each end; button the rein to the bottom ring, first pass it through the top ring and buckle it to the bridle bit. The bottom end of the billet strap should be a good Bin., to take up or let out, not a hit less. That's the way to put a colt on the bit; it don't punish him and it acts with a leverage, so that the horse can play with the bridle bit and he'll soon get a good mouth, I drew the pattern of this bit thirty years ago, It's my own invention; it hurts no horso's mouth and he can't run away with you. I can stop a horse or put hint on his hind legs with my finger better with one of those bits than many can pulling thoir whole fists, I've often a deal of correspondence with gentlemen wanting them. When you've had the roller and the straps about him, get the saddle carefully on and lunge him; give him his time, and use him to go round to the right hand, then take him back to the stable, and stand by his head with a rein to the bridle; then try and get on and off till you are tired. A few days will make him ride, People are so impatient and knock them about so! Dal! I should as soon have thought of hitting another man's child." The Professor winds up with this moral: " Time and good management brings all things to pass,