CHAMPION HORSE PERSUADER

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 2 March 1935, Page 12

CHAMPION HORSE PERSUADER

Coaxes Frightened Beasts Into Railway Vans

is a foreman porter at Pad-

“I try to mesmerise the horse,”

dington Station, London, who specialises in persuading frightened horses to travel by rail, says the Daily Mail.

He ,is Mr “Nobby” Way, whom many call “the uncrowned king of horseflesh.”

“If he has been in a railway box before and remembers hitting his head on the door—through lack of care on the part of the porter—l simply lead him round and round until he forgets that he is going into the van until he finds himself there.

He -has been coaxing the finest racehorses, the w r ildest Argentine mules, and the most objectionable of carthorses into raihvay vans for thirtyfive years, an-d on a recent day he achieved another remarkable triumph. Six porters had tried in vain for three hours to entice a wild, unbroken polo pony from South America into a train for Charlton Kings, Gloucestershire. The train left without it.

“When the war broke out in 1914, I worked from 10 o’clock in the morning on the first day until 4 p.m. the next day piling mules into vans. It was nothing for me to work fourteen l hours a day during the war.

Then Mr Way came on duty. Gently he took the animal’s” head, walked him three times round the station, whispered something in liis ear, and within three minutes the animal was safely packed into the van. Since the end of last century Mr Way has handled tens of thousands of horses, and we are assured by a high official at the station that no horse has ever beaten,him yet.

“The most savage animals of all that I have handled were the Argentine mules, the sort that can kick a gnat’s eye out.”

The awkward pony from the Argentine and the porters trying to get him into -his box drew an audience of scores of delighted schoolboys. Women shouted advice, while supplies of carrots and sugar were obtained from the refreshment Toom as bait.

said Mr Way. “A horse is as sensible as you or I. You have got to think out a way of tricking him.