THE LEVER, THE BIT AND CURB, ETC. 189 



its forming a continuation of the upper cheek. Either 

 of these methods will be found to answer the desired 

 end, without interfering with the proper action of the 

 bit, and are not only unobjectionable, but should be 

 always resorted to when necessary, because nothing is 

 more common than to see unthinking riders reject a 

 bit whose mouth-piece has the proper dimensions, and 

 adopt one that is a quarter or half an inch too wide, 

 simply because they find that the upper bars do not 

 fit the outside of the horse's head ; in fact, this is what 

 frequently leads to a wrong selection of bits. People 

 think of the outside and visible part, and neglect 

 altogether the much more important interior of the 

 mouth and' the mouth-piece. 



It may be useful to summarise here the whole of 

 what has been -explained in detail in the preceding 

 pages. We may say, then, that the average height of 

 the bar of the horse's mouth being If inch, the upper 

 cheek of the bit need never be longer, except, perhaps, 

 in very rare instances of horses 18 hands high and 

 upwards ; and this gives us 3^ inches for the lower 

 one, and for both a total of 5^ inches, measured from 

 where the curb-hook rests in the upper ring to where 

 the lower ring plays in its socket. For ponies or small 

 hacks these dimensions must be reduced to 1 inch 

 upper cheek, 3 inches lower one, and total length of 

 bit 4|- inches. These are the only fixed dimensions that 

 can be safely given ; the remaining equally important 

 ones are variable, and must be ascertained by measure- 

 ment in the way to be presently pointed out. 



Let us now suppose that we have ascertained the 

 exact width of the horse's mouth, and also the proper 

 form of the mouth-piece ; we then have the length of 



