140 HUMANE HORSE-TRAINING 



gradually gets worse and worse. Sometimes a plain 

 leather bit or half-cheek trotting-bit suits a puller better 

 than anything. But owners are afraid to try one, 

 thinking that if a Liverpool bit cannot hold, what use 

 would a leather bit be ? The old saying, " The more 

 you pull at a tree the more you may pull," applies 

 equally to the pulling horse. 



I was surprised once when I saw the late Walter 

 Winans driving his beautiful trotter Doctor Work at 

 Parsloes Park. My attention was drawn to the bit he 

 was using. The cheeks of the bit were somewhat formid- 

 able, and different from the ordinary trotting-bit. I 

 decided to go quietly and examine the bit after Doctor 

 Work was unharnessed. To my pleasant astonishment 

 I saw that the bit was thickly padded with rubber, 

 and the inside of the cheeks was cushioned. Mr. Winans 

 told me that he thought the formidable cheeks looked 

 more majestic and better than a simple single ring as 

 generally seen on the trotting-bit, and he had once seen 

 a delicate bit break in a race, and, being a great advocate 

 for safety, he had the bit in question made to his design. 

 At his sale at Aldridge's there were something like a 

 hundred different bits. Yet it was impossible to find 

 a cruel jaw-breaking bit amongst them. 



Do not buy a pony for economy's sake, thinking that 



