BITS AND BITTING. 157 



use), to drop his head to its natural position, he not only- 

 goes safely, but without risk of cutting his fetlocks over 

 ground deeply covered with loose impediments of any 

 description ; and, accordingly, in Surrey, it has long been a 

 hunting axiom that it is the curb-bridles which, by throwing 

 hunters on their haunches in a false position, cause them to 

 cut their back sinews with those sharp flints which, in a 

 snaffle bit, they can clatter over without injury." That 

 admirable horsewoman, Mrs. Power O'Donoghue is in 

 favour of a double-ring snaffle, which is termed " the 

 improved Newmarket snaffle." 



I have always found, during a somewhat lengthy experience, 

 that the unmanageableness of certain horses is, in a large 

 majority of cases, due either to over-bitting or to the pro- 

 verbial " hands of iron " which, among men especially, are 

 the rule rather than the exception. One of our at one time 

 crack steeplechase jockeys, who shall be nameless^ but who 

 has been on the back of many winners, from that of the 

 Grand National downwards, has such a heavy unyielding 

 hold of a horse that any animal, no matter how silky of 

 mouth, entering his stable, leaves it a hard dead puller. 



I do not subscribe to the very generally accepted opinion 

 that there are as many degrees of mouths as there are horses, 

 and that, consequently, each individual unit of the equine 

 race requires a particular bit made to suit him. Were such 

 the case, then "touch," or deft handling, would be of little 

 effect, and the loriner's inventive faculty would know no 

 rest. Already the bridle-bit maker's genius and ingenuity 

 has been pretty freely exercised, for since the days of tlie 

 Roman emperors (Theodosius is represented in an ancient 

 sculpture riding with one warranted to break the jaw of the 

 bull-headed Bucephalus) up to the present there are no fewer 

 than some six scores of bits all said to act like a charm on 



