2o6 BREAKING ON FOOT. 



the standing martingale inculcates, namely, that of bending 

 his head and neck to save his mouth. When both reins 

 pass through rings on the surcingle, or through the shaft 

 rings of a harness pad, the driver on foot is prevented, by 

 the fact of the inward rein going back to the surcingle 

 instead of coming straight from the ring of the snaffle to 

 his hand, from standing in the centre of the circle on which 

 he drives the horse, and is consequently obliged to more 

 or less follow the animal, and by doing so (see page 199) 

 is apt to bear unduly on the reins, and make the horse's 

 mouth " dead." The absence of a driving-pad deprives 

 the breaker of the great advantage of being able to raise or 

 lower the outward rein at will. In breaking for harness, 

 and especially for fast trotting on level ground, the neces- 

 sity for teaching horses to bend the neck, to get the hind- 

 quarters under them, to moderate the speed in response to 

 a pull on the reins, is not nearly so imperative as in edu- 

 cating the hunter, chaser, and charger, which should always 

 have a " spare leg " for any emergency. The method of 

 long-rein mouthing is as applicable to "spoiled" horses as 

 it is to entirely unhandled animals. To my thinking, one 

 great beauty in it — apart from its immense advantage of 

 never giving the pupil the chance of getting the upper 

 hand, which he might easily do if the breaker were in the 

 saddle — is that the breaker can at any moment tell how 

 his pupil is progressing by the feeling of the reins, and can 

 accordingly, with well-grounded confidence, use his own 

 judgment in regulating the amount or the nature of the 

 instruction. The man who, on the contrary, tries to mouth 

 a horse by "tying him up " by means of side reins, dumb 



