TKAINING THE TROTTING HORSE. 



John Splan, in his work, " Life with the Trotters," 

 has, among many good things, these remarks, which 

 are well worth quoting : 



" My experience has been that no horse can be suc- 

 cessfully driven with anything like a severe bit. I 

 never saw one that was broken of the habit of pulling 

 in that way. If you put a severe bit in the horse's 

 mouth and pull on it, it makes him mad and irritates 

 him ; the further you drive him and the harder 3^ou 

 pull, the more he will pull against you. When I was a 

 boy almost everj^ trotter I saw would pull in a disa- 

 greeable manner when being driven at top speed. At 

 the present time I cannot think of one horse that is 

 anything like first-class, that pulls enough to make it 

 disagreeable for a man at any time. . . . There 

 are a great many horses that will not take kindly to 

 an over-check, and if 3^ou msist on using it on them it 

 will sooner or later spoil the horse's disposition to a 

 great extent. The plainest case of the kind that ever 

 came into my hands was Fanny Witherspoon. She 

 had been trained for a number of years, and always 

 with an over-check. I trained her myself for over a 

 year in the same manner, but with very little satisfac- 

 tion, as she seemed to continually have some trouble 

 with her mouth. In talking the matter over with my 

 friend Hickok he advised that I try her with a check 

 bit, side-check, and nose-band attachment. I did so, 

 and in the shortest time imaginable the mare showed a 

 very marked improvement in her driving." 



When a horse seems to be irritated and fights the 

 bit or check, he cannot improve. It may take some 

 experimenting to find out what will suit him, but the 



