I 4 6 DRIVING. 



he looks about him much less, and is not nearly so likely to 

 rub off his bridle. Those who dislike a bearing-rein should 

 buckle the throat-lash two or three holes tighter than usual. 

 Some horses, the moment that you stop, put down their heads 

 between their forelegs and try to rub off their bridles a most 

 dangerous proceeding. All horses look better in a bearing- 

 rein when standing still, as the moment you stop down go 

 their heads, and then a four-hundred-guinea horse looks like a 

 forty-pounder. In old coaching days I often heard it said that 

 those coachmen who were the first to take off the bearing- 

 reins were the first to put them on again. In heavy night 

 coaches, such as the ' Paul Pry,' which ran from London, 

 through Beaconsfield, to Oxford, weighed about four tons, 

 including passengers and luggage, and stopped often, running 

 long stages with under-bred horses with hard mouths, bearing- 

 reins were a great safety-guard and assistance both to the 

 horses and the coachmen. One of my leaders once rubbed 

 his bridle off, when stopping at a shop in a to\Vn. Ned Poulter, 

 who, at one time, drove the ' Light Salisbury ' from Andover to 

 Basingstoke, in going down a hill near Whitchurch, upset his 

 coach and broke his leg, one of the wheel-horses having caught 

 the cross-bar at the bottom of his bit in the little hook at the 

 end of the pole-chain, which was turned up, instead of down- 

 wards, as it ought to have been ; the horse became frightened 

 and restive, thus causing this sad accident. Of course, with 

 nice light-mouthed horses, when just taking a drive for an hour 

 or two, all bearing-reins can be dispensed with. Bits are now 

 made without the cross-bar at the bottom, and they are much 

 the safest. 



