140 THE HORSE 



At last we are off, but slowly. No matter how great 

 the need for haste, the start should be an easy one. 

 A draft horse should be walked for the first half-hour; 

 In fact a draft horse should really never be trotted. 

 The trot jars a heavy horse, and his feet — the weak 

 point in any horse — can hardly stand the pounding of 

 his heavy weight upon pavements or hard roads. 



The road horse should be walked for fifty or a 

 hundred yards, and then jogged slowly for three or 

 four miles. Nothing is more sure to exhaust a horse 

 than fast driving for the first few miles. Remember 

 also that the most fatiguing kind of road is a long level 

 stretch. On level ground the pull is incessant, and 

 therefore exhausting. It is on the undulating, up and 

 down, road that fast time can be made with a good 

 horse. On such a road the horse gets his breath and 

 rests his muscles on the down grades. The work is 

 intermittent. For the same reason fire horses can pull 

 a heavy engine easier at a gallop than at a fast trot, for 

 the gallop Is a series of pulls, but the trot Is a con- 

 tinuous pull. 



If the driver has any regard for his horses' feet, he 

 will drive slowly down hill, letting the nags out as 

 they approach the bottom, and, with the momentum 

 thus acquired, galloping up the next hill or part of It. 

 This Is the beauty of driving in a hilly country. What 

 sound rings more pleasantly in the ear than the clatter 

 of hoofs and the rattle of boards as you gallop over a 

 little bridge In a hollow! And the horses enjoy that 

 music as much as we do. 



A brake, by the way, is absolutely necessary in a hilly 



