BREAKING HORSES

Mick Mouritz on breaking horses from Needilup:

Michael ‘Mick’ Mouritz said he felt that the settlers were doing quite well around 1926. His brother Arthur had put in 150 acres of crop at Pallinup using the five draught horses. At that stage a draught horse was worth 25 pounds.

Arthur had bought three horses from Dan Hegarty who reared horses down near Hassell’s at Needilup.

The horses ran out on the open country between there and the coast and when you wanted to buy a horse they would go out and round up a mob and pick out the ones that they wanted and take it away.

The Treasure family and Peb Flanagan went for horses and Mick went down with Peb to Hegarty's in order to bring five horses back. Hegarty was very keen to know whether his horses would be well looked after, he was horse lover and is very good at handling them. Mick said that he could virtually walk up and catch almost any one of them. Hegarty's brand was D84.

Mick commented that it was quite a thing for a young man to have a horse, as motor cars and bikes were not available. He realised that he was good at handling horses and he would take it up as a hobby, always keeping a couple of young horses out in a paddock ready to handle. Mick would get up early in the morning and work them before breakfast. He didn't have much to do with draught horses because there were the farm horses. At the time the Parnell and the Hams families were rearing ‘light horses’ for sale. These were bred for hacks and most of them came from brumby stock.

Mick says you could tell a brumby because it hadn’t reached it’s potential in size or toughness because of the demanding conditions under which they had lived. They were also ‘flighty’. Brumbies usually weren't broken in until they were perhaps four or five years old, and could be bought for about five pounds.

Once they were broken and quiet enough to sell Mick could get around 10 pounds for them. After selecting his horses he would stay overnight and in the morning ‘break them’ and the following day take them home alongside of his riding horse. If he had several he would put them together, using a bridle with couplings on it.

Mick describes how he would break horse. He talks about teaching them first that the rope was master.

“First you would put a bow line on them, there is only one way to tie a horse up and that is with a bow line which can't slip and can't knot. The usual way was to put a bow line on and put him in the yard with a bridle and a long light lead on him and let him run around and then teach him to turn left or right by moving on the rein.

After that you ‘lunge’ him, you put him round so that whichever way he went you could pull the reins and he would come to you”.

Mick says some people broke horses in with the whip. They would crack the whip in the face of the horse until the horse would follow them up to avoid being hit. He didn't approve of this method and felt was too severe.

“Some choked their horses down by using slip knots, which occasionally ended in death or crippling the animal”.

Mick spoke of the use of a circle - first tying one side back so the horse was continually turning one way, champing at the bit and that was educating and hardening the mouth. A horse could be left with a red raw mouth if people left them too long on the short rein.

Finally the saddle would be put on to get the horse used to the saddle. Once it was comfortable with the saddle, t the horse would be tied up to a short post and the rider would step into the stirrup. The riders’ weight would be put on the stirrup so the horse could feel the weight and all the time the rider was gaining the horses’ confidence.

Text taken from an Oral History Transcript held at the Battye Library

A 'remount’ was a horse that could carry a 12 stone (76 kilo) man and his equipment quite comfortably. It was much taller around 16 hands “There would be quite a few looking for horses at the local sales and if you had a good-looking horse you would be sure to get 25 or even 35 pounds for it” said Mick Used in WWI.

In the 1920’s & 30’s the Indian Army was buying thousands of them from Australia and farmers were encouraged to breed them to provide enough to meet export demand.

Michael ‘Mick’ Mouritz wrote a book “Only the Wind Was Free” in 1969 which spans the years he spent working with his brother Arthur on the farm at Gnowangerup; the time working at the Pallinup Homestead for Major Wilkinson and his subsequent pioneering days at Hyden. It is an excellent read.

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Copyright : Gordon Freegard 2023