RIDING TO HOUNDS 1 69 



choose another way of reaching the 

 hounds than to risk adding to the 

 number of refusers, unless she be so 

 well mounted as to be sure of giving 

 the rest a lead. 



• A. hot-headed, excitable horse will go 

 more quietly if he can be made to think 



Excitable and ne * s ahead of the others. 

 Sluggish Horses Therefore his rider should 

 choose a line for herself, apart from the 

 others, and if he is a good performer it 

 will be safer to put him at a big jump 

 where he can take it coolly than to 

 trust him at a smaller place where oth- 

 er horses are crowding and goading him 

 into a state of such impatience that in 

 his anxiety to overtake any one in front 

 of him he will jump without calcula- 

 tion, and endanger all in his vicinity by 

 kicking, rearing, or rushing. 



A sluggish horse, on the contrary, 

 should be kept near others, that their 



