40 THE BRIDLE BITS. 



is off a cobblestone yard. If the horse fails and his rider 

 is obliged to come out by the gate, he pays the keeper 

 regular poundage, and gets laughed at for his failure, 

 besides losing the sale. Some sales are made condition- 

 ally — so much if he jumps in, and so much if he fails to 

 jump out. 



The recent performances of the horses Leo and Lord-of- 

 the-Isles at the horse shows in Madison Square Garden, 

 'New York, established, the fact of the great mental and. 

 physical poAvers and capacity of the horse in everything 

 to which he is properly bred and trained. We have 

 heard of and seen horses take wonderful leaps over rivers, 

 drains, double ditches, and deer-park Avails of lime and 

 stone, coped on top and some having broken glass bottles 

 sunk in the mortar while wet, all varying in width and 

 height from tAventy to thirty feet, and from five to eight 

 feet ; but these feats Avere done in oj^en daylight in the 

 field, and under the influence of the greatest excitement, 

 Avhen both horse and rider Avere tearing away in competi- 

 tion with others in mad pursuit of some fair opportunity 

 to accomplish a deed that Avould henceforth mark a 

 period in the extraordinary feats of both horse and horse- 

 manship. But to keep a horse like Lord-of-the-Isles tied 

 up for days in a four-foot stall, with but little exercise 

 and that under cover, and then to bring him out at night, 

 mount and ride him by the glare of electric lights at a 

 six-foot-six-inch bar fence and clear it — he weio:hino: 

 1,100 pounds and his rider 145 pounds — is a performance 

 that the equine Avorld may well wonder at, and Mr. 

 Primrose, his owner, be proud of. The horse Avas rid- 

 den with a hea\'y snaffle bit, and, besides the weight of 

 the rider, he carried that of the saddle, thus making about 

 160 pounds, not including the shoes — say in all 1,2G0 

 pounds. The gallant Leo performed the same feat, in 

 the same place and at the same hour, the year before. 



