MANAGEMENT OF THE BRIDLE. 43 



generally speaking, more than is desired, his rider has 

 merely to teach the noble animal beneath him to add 

 to his valour just enough discretion to induce him to 

 look, not before, but while he leaps. 



A hunter when following hounds is so excited, that 

 if, in addition to his own eagerness, he be hurried at his 

 fences, he rushes more and more recklessly at them, until 

 he gets into needless trouble. On the other hand, just as 

 he approaches every fence, if he be always patted on 

 the neck, and gently restrained, he feels satisfied that 

 he is to be allowed to do the job ; and accordingly, cur- 

 tailing his stride as he approaches, he does it not only 

 cleverly, but without any waste of exertion, which, to 

 use a common hunting-field expression, "he may want 

 before the day's over." 



When a horse is enabled, like a soldier whose stiff 

 stock has just been unbuckled, to drop his head to its 

 natural position, he not only goes safely, but, without 

 risk of cutting his fetlocks, he can gallop over ground 

 deeply covered with loose impediments of any descrip- 

 tion; and, accordingly, in Surrey it has long been a 

 hunting axiom that it is the curb bridles which by 

 throwing hunters on their haunches in a false position 

 cause them to cut their back sinews with those sharp 

 flints which, in a snafSe bit, they can clatter over with- 

 out injury. A good Northamptonshire rider, in lately 



