68 THE COMPLETE HORSEMAN 



on occasion, if the vehicle in which he has to 

 work be of the wagonette or general utility order. 

 A horse for drawing a heavy conveyance should 

 not be lower than 15 hands 2 inches, and will 

 perhaps be all the better for being a couple of 

 inches taller. He should stand on a short leg 

 and be wide and powerful and above everything 

 his action should be straight. A horse that 

 * weaves ' expends a lot of his energy in the air 

 where it is not wanted, and a horse that turns 

 his toes in is apt to hit himself when he tires and 

 perhaps come down. A puller in harness is an 

 abomination and if a horse cannot be easily 

 held he should never be bought as a harness 

 horse. I have been run away with in harness 

 more than once, and it is by no means a pleasant 

 sensation. Nothing came of either of my ex- 

 periences and I did not say much about them, 

 but I thought a lot. Curiously enough I gave 

 both of these horses an opportunity of running 

 away in the hunting field and though they could 

 certainly not be called hunter -bred ones they 

 took kindly to the sport and made capital hunters. 

 The question of running away brings one to 

 the question of the bearing rein. There is a 

 great deal of nonsense written and talked by 

 kind-hearted people about the use of the bearing 

 rein. The whole question may be sum.med up 

 in a word — some horses need them and some 

 don't. If I had had a bearing rein on either 

 of the mares that ran away with me they 

 would never have run away. They were both 



