BREAKING SADDLE HORSES
Winnie Francis Morgan was the fourth child horn to Frank and Elsie Morgan. A hrief sketch of her life is contained elsewhere in this collection of narratives. Wallace Samuel followed Winnie. His birth being in fifth place. In my early years we were very close. I would have been fourteen years old when he left home permanently. He worked away from home a great deal of the time but lived at home. His pastime was breaking saddle horses. I was his helper. That was probably a very accurate description of the process. We simply broke the horse to halter and after a bit of handling the next step was to saddle it and maybe spend a little time getting it used to the saddle. After this the horse was snubbed by a halter and rope to another saddle horse. This was my job. I, being mounted on the snubbing horse would take a couple of wraps around the horn with the lead rope. Wallace would then mount the colt, sometimes from the back of the horse I was riding. Once he was firmly in the saddle we were ready to go. Sometimes when the colt discovered something on its back things happened fast. Horses have a wide range of vision, including behind them. That is why work horses usually wear bridles with blinders. Blinders only allow the animal to see straight ahead. They are never used on saddle horses. One of the rules of snubbing is to keep the horses head on a very short rope. If the horse turns violent and is allowed enough rope, the man on the snubbing horse might have the forefeet in the saddle with him. This of course is not a good thing. Most of the horses that we broke were not that bad. Snubbing was a way to prevent some spills. After a few rides the snubber was more company and a model for the colt to follow until it learned to obey the actions and commands of its rider. At this point it is interesting to note that horsebreaking, whether it was to saddle or harness, was almost always accomplished with the aid of an experienced horse. Looking back, I suspect that this is part of the reason that I covered a great deal of the neighborhood on horseback. Sunday or holidays was when we worked with the colts. There was another way to break saddle horses. That was simply to saddle the colt and while he was being held, mount the horse. After the rider was firmly in the saddle the colt was turned loose. If the rider was good enough to stay with him then the horse was trained. This way was used a great deal and it seems like story tellers preferred to mention it in their writings. In my opinion this method had a drawback. If the horse was rather high strung it was likely that he might get the notion that a few seconds of pitching was the proper way to start the day. I quit riding many years ago. I only rode in later years when working cattle. So it was with Dad. From bronc riding to farmer. I can recall seeing him astride a horse only on a few occasions. Things have changed. Horse training has become a science. It seems that the trainer works alone with the colt. Many of the terms commonly used today were certainly not common knowledge in my day.
The term leads is an example. A good horse would do that naturally in tight situations of fast movement. To do otherwise would cause him to he unbalanced and maybe even trip on his own feet. It was something we did not concern ourselves about. If the horse was not surefooted he was soon culled from the saddle string. Even a gentle horse can injure itself or the rider if it cannot handle its feet. Wallace is mentioned on several occasions so I will not be redundant here. He died in a farm accident near Craig, Colorado in 1958. That is another story. It sort of closed a chapter in my life. Even as grown men I always had a sort of ache in my heart when we parted after a visit.