188 BITS AND BITTING. 



is to prevent the horse from catching hold of it with his 

 lips, and then getting it between his teeth, a trick many 

 horses acquire. With the straight cheek recourse is had 

 to a curb-strap in such cases, as every one knows ; but 

 it is much simpler and easier for military purposes to 

 adopt the curved cheek, and there is no other reason 

 beyond whim and fashion why civilians should not do 

 the same. 



As to the upper ring or eye into which the headstall 

 of the bridle is. fastened, this is now pretty nearly always 

 really ring-shaped. In former times it was usually 

 flattened down in various degrees from an oval to a 

 mere horizontal slit ; bat since the real principles of 

 bitting have become better understood, the simple ring 

 is preferred, and will be generally found to answer all 

 purposes perfectly, although, no doubt, there are some 

 cases where it might be convenient to use the oval- 

 shaped eye ; these are, however, very few indeed. We 

 have also hitherto considered the right and left side- 

 pieces (upper and lower cheeks taken together) of the 

 bit as being in all cases parallel to each other, and 

 consequently at right-angles to the mouth-piece. There 

 are, however, many horses, especially underbred ones, 

 whose heads will be found to project laterally, imme- 

 diately above the angles of the mouth, in a sudden 

 instead of the usual gradual manner ; and the width of 

 the mouth-piece is therefore insufficient to give the upper 

 cheeks, especially the rings, the requisite degree of play ; 

 or rather, the latter will most probably gall the horse's 

 cheeks more or less. There are two ways in which 

 this may be readily avoided ; first, by inclining the 

 upper cheeks somewhat outwards (Fig. 15, a), or by 

 making the upper ring movable (Fig. 15, b), instead of 



