35 



s6 The Book of the Horse. 



to draw a heavy weight, the collar must be thick and heavy ; where, as in so many modern 

 carriages, the weight is nominal, it may be made according to taste, as light as the American 

 patterns, or it may be dispensed with altogether in favour of a breastplate for country use, 

 which fits every horse, and can be put on in one minute in the dark. 



THF. PAD— TUGS — CRUTPER — KICKING-STRAP — BREECH XG. 



The pad, or saddle, of a four-wheeled carriage has no weight to sustain beyond the shafts, 

 and no strain, except when a horse is descending a hill without breeching or drag on the 

 wheels. The size is therefore quite a matter of taste — modern taste is in the direction of light- 

 ness — but a pad of good breadth need not be so tightly girthed as a smaller one, and looks 

 better with a ponderous carriage and horse. 



The shaft-tugs attached to it may be either simple loops, retained in their place by the 

 metal stops of the shafts and the traces — and these are the best for dog-carts and other two- 

 wheeled vehicles, which require the horse to be loose in the shafts — or they may be hooks on 

 which the shafts in harnessing are made to fall, retained in their places by a girth passed 

 round the shafts as well as the belly of the horse, which so binds them that the shafts become 

 in fact traces. These are called "Tilbury tugs" (see illustration), after the name of the 

 inventor. It is of importance that the shaft-tugs should be of the right length, so as to 

 suspend the shafts at exactly the right height — that is, the middle of the swell of the pad- 

 flaps, both perpendicularly and horizontally, unless the shafts are much bent, when the tugs 

 must be shorter. The proper horizontal position of the shaft-tugs can only be maintained by 

 the traces being of the proper length ; if they are too short, the tugs and pad, when the horse 

 is moving, are forced forward, and the crupper is thus drawn so tight as to provoke kicking. 

 If the traces are too long, the horse draws the carriage by the tugs instead of by the traces 

 — an absurd arrangement. In either case, a horse of a naturally placid temperament is 

 uncomfortable, and not unfrcquently becomes restive, to the astonishment of an ignorant 

 driver. 



Tugs too long, and the shafts in consequence too low, are a mistake in harness common 

 with country grooms ; but traces too long and too short may be seen every day in the fly- 

 broughams and even private carriages of London. 



The crupper, discarded from civilian saddlers, seems indispensable to keep the pad in its 

 place in single and double harness, and to allow the attachment of a kicking-strap in the 

 latter. 



The late Honourable Sj'dney Picrrepoint — a great coachman in the palmy days of road 

 and private four-in-hand coaches— used to drive a pair of horses with unlined straps, instead 

 of pad.s, to support the traces and carry the terret rings, and no cruppers ; the leaders of some 

 fast coaches were driven without cruppers, as one learns from the song of the Tantivy Trot. 

 But these are eccentricities, and the use of the crupper may be said to be universal, yet it is 

 a prolific source of kicking, and should not be used in the first breaking of very high- 

 rouraged horses to harness. A crupper should be very thick, and stuffed with linseed. A 

 thick crupper is less likely to gall than a thin one. 



There is an invention called the " Nichol's Crupper," in which a sort of shelf is provided 

 for making horses who carry their tails badly hold them out. Whether it can be used without 

 galling the tail is a di.sputcd point ; but if it does not it may be useful for the harness of 

 carrii.ges where the spla.shboard is low and the tails of the horses are long — a conj unction 



