iio Cross Country with Horse and Hound 



I had hastily bought a very wonderful "goer," which was 

 driven to a railway-station for my inspection while the 

 train stopped. Upon the completion of the purchase I sent 

 my man for him, and he came into my yard, after his drive 

 of fourteen miles, with the lines wound about his hands, 

 and declaring he had pulled himself and the wagon every 

 step of the way from Pearl Creek, that the traces had not 

 been taut once, and that the ''britchen" was tight nearly 

 all the way. I had bought the horse for a tandem leader, 

 but he was, as the groom said, an awful puller. Now it 

 so happened that the order to the stables had been 

 confused and the puller put in the lead. We started. 

 Imagine our surprise when, instead of developing his usual 

 pulling qualities as the distance increased, our puller-leader 

 quit them altogether, and that before the end of the first 

 drive. We kept him at it for a few weeks, and he never 

 pulled after that in any harness. He proved to be the 

 most perfect horse in the lead I ever drove. Since this 

 episode the first thing I do with pullers or heavy-mouthed 

 horses is to put them through this tandem school, and it 

 has never failed to benefit them greatly and in most cases to 

 produce a virtual cure. Many a horse that pulls when at 

 the wheel will go beautifully in the lead. I do not hesi- 

 tate to say there is nothing better for a heavy-mouthed 

 horse than to be put in the lead tandem, and nothing better 

 for a man with heavy hands than to practise tandem- 

 driving. 



There is, further, in all this an important lesson ; namely, 

 that in breaking colts to drive we should use long reins. 

 Length of rein in riding certainly adds materially to the 



