Page:The Modern Art of Taming Wild Horses.djvu/16

12 defence, it is said, which was given to the horse, was on the same principle as that worn by man, and was a sort of sandal made of leather, tied to the horse's foot by means of straps or strings. And, finally, plates of metal were fastened to the horse's feet by the same simple means.

Here again, as in the case of the stirrupless saddle, when we reflect that men should, for nearly a thousand years, have gone on fastening plates of metal under horses' hoofs by the clumsy means of straps and strings, without its ever occurring to them to try so simple an improvement as nails, we have another remarkable demonstration of the slow steps by which horsemanship has reached its present state.

In the foregoing remarks I have taken the liberty of extracting several facts from a valuable little work by Rollo Springfield. With this short comment on the rise and progress of horsemanship, from its commencement up to the present time, I will proceed to give you the principles of a new theory of taming wild horses, which is the result of many experiments, and a thorough investigation and trial of the different methods of horsemanship now in use.