To the uninitiated horse owner, there are timely facts about horses they should know. In fact, when someone first gets a horse these timely facts should be studied and learned.

These timely facts come from the Jesse Beery horse training manual. Jesse Beery was a famous horse trainer from the 1800's. Interestingly, Beery's training methods are as powerful today as they were when Beery was alive.

Timely Fact #1:

Make your horse your friend, not your slave.

Timely Fact #2:

Almost every wrong act of the horse is caused by fear, excitement or mismanagement. One harsh word will increase the pulse of a nervous horse ten beats a minute. Hoses know nothing about balking until forced into it by bad management. Any balky horse an be started steady and true in a few minutes. I never found one that I could not teach to start his load in fifteen minutes and usually in three.

Timely Fact #3:

Intelligent horsemen have learned that kickers, biters and balkers are natural results of abuse, that not one horse in a hundred is vicious until made so by cruelty; that whipping a horse is as mean and senseless as whipping a baby, and that the most useful, obedient and long lived horses are those treated from birth with kindness and common sense.

Timely Fact #4:

The whip is the parent of stubborness, but gentleness wins obedience. There is no such thing as balkiness in a horse that is kindly treated, and that gets an occasional apple, potato or sugar from his master's hand.

Timely Fact #5:

When a hose is afraid or excited, quiet him by kind words and caress. An excited horse is practically crazy and to whip him is dangerous, foolish and cruel. I have known a single blow of the whip to balk a spirited horse. Whipping a balky horse is barbarous and only increases balkiness.