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.

This will conquer him better than anything you could do, and without any
possible danger of hurting himself or you either, for you can tie up his
foot and sit down and look at him until he gives up. When you find that he
is conquered, go to him, let down his foot, rub his leg with your hand,
caress him and let him rest a little, then put it up again. Repeat this a
few times, always putting up the same foot, and he will soon learn to
travel on three legs so that you can drive him some distance. As soon as
he gets a little used to this way of traveling, put on your harness and
hitch him to a sulky. If he is the worst kicking horse that ever raised a
foot you need not be fearful of his doing any damage while he has one foot
up, for he cannot kick, neither can he run fast enough to