St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-05-25
THE "BUCK1NG BRoNCHo."
A Somewhat Despised but Faith
full and Useful Animal.

There is no horse superior to the bron-
che for endurance; few are his equals.
He came by it naturally from the Span
ish stock of Moorish descent, the indi-
viduals of which race, abandoned in the
sixteenth century, were his immediate
ancestors, and his hardy life has, by
survival of the fitteSt, increased this en-
durance tenfold. He is not handsome.
food; it is loosely joined to his quarters,
and his hip is very short. He has a
hammer head, and the pronounced
eve neck which all plains or step
pes horses seem to acquire. His
legs are naturally perfect, but they
finally give way at the knees from
sharp stopping with gag bit for an
Indian will turn on 10-cent piece. One
form of racing is to place two long par
allel strips of buffalo hide on the ground
at an interval of but few feet, and,
starting from distance. to ride up to
these strips. cross the first, turn between
the two, and gallOp back to the starting
point. Another is to ride up to log
hung horizontally and just high
enough to allow the pony to get under,
but not the rider, touch it and return.
If the pony is stopped too soon the In
dian loses time III touching the log; If
too late he gets scraped off. The sud-
den Jerking Of the pony on its launches
is apt both to start curbS and break his
knees.
The toughness and strength of the
pony can scarcely be exaggerated He
will live through winter that will kill
the hardest cattle. He worries through
the long months when the snow has
covered up the bunch grass, on diet
0F Ool ~. II
dian cuts down for him; and in the
spring it takes buta few weeks for him
to ScOur out into splendid condition.
He can go unheard of distances. Col.
K. l. Dodge records an instance coming
under his observation where a pony
carried the mails 800 miles in three con-
Secutive nights. and back over the same
road the next week, and kept this up for
SIX months withoutlos of condition.
He can carry any weight. Mr..
Parkman speaks of a chief known
as LIE COchon, on account of his 800
pounds avoirdupois, who nevertheless
rode his ponies as bravely as a man of
half the bulk. He as often carries two
people as one. There is simply no end
to this wonderful product of the prairies.
He works many years. So long as he
will fat up in the spring, his age is i'm
material.
The absence of crest in the pony sug-
gests the curious query of what has be-
come of the proud arching neck of his
ancestors, the Barb. There are two
ways of accounting for this. The In
dams gag bit. Invariably applied with
a jerk, throws up the pony's head in
stead of bringing it down, as the slow
and light application of the school curb
will do. and this tends to develop the
eve neck. Or more sufficient reason
may be found in the fact
that the starvation which the pony
undergoes in the winter months
tends to deplete him of every
superfuous ounce of flesh. The crest
in the horse is mostly meat, and its an
nual depletion has finally brought down
the pony's neck nearer to the outline of
a skeleton. 1t was with much ado that
the pony held onto life during the win
ter; he could not find enough food to
flesh up merely ornamental appen-
dage like crest. The Moors and
Arabs prize the beauty of the high
arched neck and breed tor it, and their
| steedS are well fed. The Indian cares
for his pony only for what he can do tor
him, and, once lost, the crest would not
be apt to be regained, for few Indians
have any conception Of breeding. The