AMATEUR HORSE-TRAINING. 7 



would hardly have believed it could be the same horse. 

 What is more, he took off his own driving horses "the 

 overdrawn check-reins" by which he had been hauling 

 their noses up into as near a horizontal line as possible, 

 and allowed them to carry their heads in a more natural 

 manner. 



The afternoon of his first lesson Sambo was put in 

 double harness for a drive of ten or twelve miles, during 

 which he annoyed me excessively by his restless dancing 

 and fretting, so that next morning I expected to have 

 to begin all over again ; but, to my satisfaction, he had 

 forgotten nothing, and came towards me at the first mo- 

 tion of the whip, so that I passed on to the Flexions de 

 la Mdchoire, which we translate as the suppling of the 

 muscles of the jaw. Here I came upon my first diffi- 

 culty, and it lasted me several day's. It was, however, 

 the only serious one in my whole course, and from sub- 

 sequent experience I am satisfied that my own awk- 

 wardness and disposition to compel obedience by main 

 force were the principal causes of it. 



However, success soon rewarded my perseverance, 

 and I had the satisfaction of feeling the iron grip of 

 the bit relax, and seeing the nose brought in and the 

 face assume a perpendicular position. 



Without at present going further into detail, I will 

 simply say that at the expiration of a month, during 

 which Sambo had been driven double almost daily, his 

 education for the saddle had so far advanced that his 



