86 NOTES FOR HUNTIXG-MEN 



and a little patience. I can quite understand that 

 in Ireland, or any bank country, a horse may go 

 better and more safely in a plain snaffle bridle ; but 

 in this form of bit there can be no question of 

 collecting a horse at his fences, or of putting him 

 on his haunches to enable him to take off right. 

 You must trust your mount to do all this for him- 

 self, and I maintain that you cannot go on doing 

 this for long with impunity over the high timber 

 and stiff laid fences you meet in the Midlands. A 

 horse comes at a bank in the condition I can only 

 describe as being ' all abroad.' He is not collected, 

 and you feel that he does not quite know when to 

 take off. I defy you on a snaffle bridle to do 

 anything to help him, and you have just to let him 

 alone. If he is a clever horse he will put in a short 

 one on the bank — he may blunder a bit, but he will 

 get over without a fall ; whereas the slightest 

 mistake in judging distance over stiff timber or a 

 blackthorn fence is an almost certain fall. Of 

 course I am not advocating messing a horse's 

 mouth about, or suggesting that you can assist him 

 to jump by means of his mouth ; but you can, b}^ 

 pulling him together twenty or thirty yards from his 

 fence, put him in the most favourable position to 

 take off right, and in jumping fences it is taking off 

 wrong which brings a horse to grief nine times out 

 of ten. 



