228 BEARING REINS. 



such cases it is ofteu wise to reserve the pull, and force his head 

 towards the real danger, rather than let him dash your wheels 

 into it. A horse will generally contrive to avoid a danger that 

 is made evident to himself, and even if he is too excited to do 

 that, it is often choosing the least of two evils. Thus we have 

 sometimes put the horse into a ditch, rather than let him turn 

 the carriage over into it, and we once put a runaway horse up 

 into a heavy stone dray, in preference to letting him dash the 

 carriage at it. 



540. — Bearing reins are less used every year, Miss Se well's 

 ** Black Beauty," and the energetic appeals and well told facts 

 of Mr. and Mrs. Flower, on this subject have done wonders. It 

 is not necessary to deny their possible utility in a few exceptional 

 cases. When a lady has to drive a horse of somewhat doubtful 

 docility, it is convenient to have a bearing rein short enough to 

 prevent the horse putting his head lower than he naturally carries 

 it at his work. This may prevent him from pulling hard on her 

 hand, or pulling the reins out of them, from getting his head to 

 the ground, from hitching his bit on the pole or shaft, from 

 rubbing off his blinkers, or even from sending up his heels^ 

 When the bearing rein is used to this extent we have nothing to 

 say against it. 



541. — But vain, thoughtless, and ignorant owners and 

 drivers have not been satisfied to use it in such a way. Some 

 unfortunate animal with all the life whipped out of him, with the 

 muscles cut from his tail so that he cannot put it down, and with 

 his mouth forced into the air with iron and leather, is supposed 

 by such judges of horse flesh, to be an imitation of the beautiful 

 natural attitude of an animated horse, carrying his own head 

 and tail in the air. Unobserving ignorance has often concluded 

 that a horse was less likely to stumble or fall down when his 

 head was tightly fastened to his tail. 



542. — It is not possible to understand the extreme cruelty 

 of this tight reining without inquiring for a moment what pro- 

 vision nature has made for carrying the horse's head. His head 

 does not rest perpendicularly over his body as curs does, but is 

 supported at the end of a long horizontal lever, like the weight 



