i8o 



ANIMAL MANAGEMENT. 



To remedy' 

 irregu- 

 larity of 

 fit. 



Regular 

 inspection 

 of saddles. 



Adjustable 

 side bars. 



Pneumatic 

 pannel.s. 



condition, or with a good blanket and nummab, may not necessarily 

 mean a sore back ; but it certainly means a sore back should the horse 

 lose condition or the blanket or pannel be thin and the tree be thus 

 brought nearer to the bony framework. 



This irregularity in the fit of the side bars may be remedied by 

 the introduction of pieces of nummah to fill up the space between the 

 side bars and blanket. With very little practice these pieces of felt may 

 be cut to the required shape and thickness ; some edges will need to be 

 almost as thin as a knife-blade, and other parts will require adding to. 



Once the pieces of felt have been cut they must be secured in 

 position. In peace this can be at once done with glue, but in the 

 field they may have to be tied on, or tacks put through them, or, what is 

 best, bound in position by means of a piece of thin leather (basil) which 

 envelops the side bar at the required part and can be tacked to its edge 

 or laced with string across the top. 



These strips of felt are capable of effecting the most radical 

 alterations in the fit of a side bar : the method has the value of 

 simplicity and requires no trained workman to carry out ; finally it can be 

 carried out in a very few minutes. 



It must never be forgotten that no matter what care we take in the 

 fitting and alteration of saddles, such fitting is only applicable to the 

 " condition " the horse is in at the time. On active service the saddles 

 require looking to every day. They should be inspected just as regularly as 

 the feet are. Every weak point in the fit of a saddle in a squadron should 

 be known, and the remedy already arranged for should trouble arise. In 

 no other way is it possible to bring horses through severe work with 

 whole backs. 



No allusion has been made to any other form of side bar but the 

 rigid one of beech, and but a limited reference to pannels ; both these 

 points may be touched on briefly, as they represent the direction 

 in which progress will in future be made, and in which advances are 

 most urgently needed. 



Adjustable side bars, owing to the arrangement of their mechanism, 

 are capable of taking the curves of the back automatically. They are 

 perhaps at present too delicate for the rough usage everything receives 

 at the hands of a soldier, but are referred to as an example of what is 

 required, and what must in course of time come to be adopted. They 

 possess the immense advantage of automatically regulating their parellelism 

 to the back, and so the weight carried is always equally distributed. 



It must have occurred to many reading this section that pneumatic 

 pannels would solve the problem of what to place under the saddle, as they 



