RIDING TO HOUNDS 169 



choose another way of reaching the 

 hounds than to risk adding to the 

 number of refusers, unless she be so 

 well mounted as to be sure of giving 

 the rest a lead. 



A hot-headed, excitable horse will go 

 more quietly if he can be made to think 

 Excitable and ne * s ahead of the others. 

 Sluggish Horses Therefore his rider should 

 choose a line for herself, apart from the 

 others, and if he is a good performer it 

 will be safer to put him at a big jump 

 where he can take it coolly than to 

 trust him at a smaller place where oth- 

 er horses are crowding and goading him 

 into a state of such impatience that in 

 his anxiety to overtake any one in front 

 of him he will jump without calcula- 

 tion, and endanger all in his vicinity by 

 kicking, rearing, or rushing. 



A sluggish horse, on the contrary, 

 should be kept near others, that their 



