Apart from operating upon the muscles of the tail to prevent switching, which often is a bad vice in mares, dealers resort to the following trick: The tail is tied up over the horse’s back as tightly as possible and left in that position over night. It becomes so numbed by this treatment that the horse is unable to use it for half a day or so after it is let down.
The switching habit is also mechanically prevented, when the mare is hitched, by fastening a strand of the hair or string from each side of the tail to a part of the breeching of harness.
Tail switching is less likely to be noticed by the buyer if the tail is tied up or braided. Therefore, it is well to let the tail down for this and other reasons before deciding to buy the horse.
Temporarily to lessen or remedy the lameness of a footsore horse, turpentine heated to the boiling point is poured into the sole of the foot. It can be held there for five minutes by binding a bandage around the foot so that the turpentine cannot run down over the hoof-head. The buyer may readily detect this trick, as the odor of turpentine gives it away when the hoof is examined.
It also is alleged that the following treatment is given for muscle soreness, caused by use over hard stones: The night before he wishes to sell the horse affected in this way, the “gyp” dealer will pour gasoline over the withers, and let it flow down both shoulders and forearms. The gasoline contracts the capillaries and larger blood vessels and diminishes the blood pressure and nerve sensibility, thus allowing a nearly natural movement of the muscles. Of course as soon as the effect of the gasoline passes away the soreness will return. If gasoline were rubbed on the muscles it would probably result in a blister.
As a preparation for the show ring contest, or before exhibiting a horse to a prospective buyer, it is almost the general practise to insert ginger root in the animal’s rectum that the irritation produced thereby may cause it to carry a high tail and show spirit and action.
While this objectionable practise obtains most as regards coach and carriage horses, it is also followed by exhibitors and sellers of draft stallions and mares, and of recent years has been practised extensively. Indeed the trick is becoming far too common, and we have even seen it boldly and flagrantly practised in the judging ring to the disgust of all decent and fair-minded spectators. Possibly there may be some excuse for the practise as a means of setting a show or sale horse “on edge,” but if allowed at all it should at least be done in private and be absolutely prohibited as a public act in the show ring. We sincerely trust that managers of horse shows will take this view of the matter; and officers of the humane societies should see to it that horses are not excessively tortured in this way. While the grooms of some horse exhibitors use ginger in the judging ring, others pay some regard to the rules of decency by backing the horses into their stalls before showing so that the trick may be practised unnoticed by the visitors who throng the aisles of the horse barns. We have heard of such a plan being followed when preparing the entire string of coach horses of one owner for the evening exhibit at a great horse show.