The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-04-26
TRAINING HORSES.
A Professional Trainers Account Of How
They Are Taught-Tests of Intelligence.

| whoa boyl"
| Crack
| tsWhoaa -a.r
Stay there" said the reporter. as he made
his way the other night from the O. p side OF
the stage at the Grand Opera house across to
the front side, to see Prof Bristols horses. Tor,
as they were billed, Soups Equescurriculum.
The curtain had just dropped, and the Journal
man was intent on hearing the Professor expa-
| tiate on horse lore.
Are all these horses equally intelligentg
| said the reporter.
No. replied Mr.. Bristol Scan you tell me
which one isl"
II should say the Arabian" pointing at a
white Arabian stallion.
"You are right He is, and wonderfully
perceptive feeler, too'
''Tell me about training animals"
| well, in the first place, you must be enough
of horseman to Judge of horses, and to deter
mine their intelligence Horses differ as widely
| as men In that regard You must not expect
the perception in Percheron that you would in a
1.-the. limbed, dapper Arabian or Kentucky horse.
ponts that determine arsfyshns bo.s and n shi
gence are theses A smooth coat-the fine
| haired horse is the BEST and then he must have
| slender neck His head indicates also his
| brain. Horse phrenology holds good. OF the
| thoroughbreds the Hambletonians are the slow
| est of perception. You will notice they have
heavy necks."
| "How long does it require horse to be trained
| to perform such tricks as those presented to-
| nightw
about three years. with constant labor You
| have to use persuasion, petting and the whip.
After horses are taught tricks, and perform them
| before audiences they soon learn that you will
not use the whip. and become INDECENT and
sleepy. You must continually watch them.
Horses learn from each other, and it
| is best to train them together. They exhibit
| vanity when they accomplish some hard feat.
and become ambitious to transcend previous
| efforts.
| do they exhibit any sagaciousness outside
of the routine work that would indicate reasonl'
Il believe they do They stumble on to tricks
The mule taught me the trick of pulling off my
| coat
OF intelligence has he, and does it equal his abil-
| ity to kick9"
Hardly. The mule, you know, works both
ways, and when he starts there is generally a h.
0. t. around Still, if you work with a long
whip. in circles and with plenty of muscle, you
can fetch him. Mules are intelligent. All the
tricks that the blind mule does taught her after
she was blind. She is very fond of children.
and docile animal / trained her by the
use of words, which she remembers, and per-
forms feats accordingly, answering to the sound.
1t took me a long while to teach the mule Denver
to teeter OF. the board side. ways. He would do
it lengthwise, but to put him across the board
and get him to do the trick, had to catch his
feet and place them backwards and forwards for
weeks
"a peculiar thing about horses in leaping is
their lack Of perspective in an obstacle. You
might teach a horse to mount fence
item item feet te high yet you could not get
OF much less height. In order to train them to
go over horses, 1 had a dummy made and in
creased it in height according as they vaulted
with buffolo robe Then we transferred the
robe to horse. and then accomplished the
feat
Horses as intelligent think, as dogs,
and am firm believer in their reasoning pow
ers. My horses are learning something new all
the time"