304 THE IMPROVED ART OF FARRIERY 



Training Horses to Leap. 



It is proper that all hunters and military horses be 

 taught to leap. This should be done gradually and 

 gently, lest the horse falls and becomes fearful. It is 

 best to commence by leading him to a low bar covered 

 with furze, which, pricking the horse's legs if he does 

 not raise himself sufficiently, prevents his contracting 

 a sluggish and dangerous habit of touching as he goes 

 over, which any thing yielding, and not pricking, would 

 give him a custom of doing. Many horses in learning 

 to leap are apt to come too near, and in a manner 

 with their feet under the bar. The best way to pre- 

 vent their doing so, is to place under the bar two 

 planks, of the breadth of the pillars on which the leap- 

 ing bar is fixed ; these planks should meet and join at 

 the top under about two feet high from the ground, 

 and project at bottom from the ground about two feet; 

 they should be strongly framed, that the horse may 

 not break them by touching them with his feet : the 

 bar should be placed so as to run round when touched. 

 The ditches and hedges to which a horse is first 

 brought, should be small and inconsiderable ; and in 

 this, as in every thing else, the increase should be made 

 bv degrees. The horse should be accustomed to ap- 

 jroach the object he is to leap, gently and without 

 hurry, and to stand coolly at it for some time, and 

 then to raise himself gently up, and go clean over it 

 without either laziness or impetuosity. When he has 

 been taught to leap well standing, he may next be 

 brought to walk up to the bar, and to go over it with- 

 out halting ; and after he has become a little familiar 

 with this practice he may be led up to it in a trot, and 

 so by degrees quicker and quicker, until he is brouglit 



