Cody illustrating how to be a thoroughly modern 16 year old kid (note the mismatched sneakers, the baggy shorts, the Walkman blaring in both ears) who also trains horses! Nobody ever said you have to wear a cowboy hat to be a horse trainer. That's a shadow on Buddy's nose, not some kind of control device. He's being driven in a standard diameter eggbutt snaffle. The inflated innertube makes a nice thing to pull at first. You get all of the noise that might upset a horse, but very little danger of it hurting anything. At first, one of us held the end of the trace extenders while another drove Buddy. Tying the tire on like this is a later development.