io8 Cross Country with Horse and Hound 



and I am conscious of not being an exception to the rule. 

 One thing, however, is certain : if we know how it ought 

 to be done, we can forever keep trying, for one never is too 

 old to learn. 



I fancy some of my readers by this time are asking if I 

 mean to say that a horse ridden with hands in the proper 

 position will never pull. He may, of course ; but you at 

 least know that so far as in you lies it is not your fault. 

 He may pull for ambition's sake, or desire to go through 

 timber faster than is safe, or faster over soft ground than 

 you, husbanding his staying powers, care to have him. 

 Perhaps he is inclined to be a little hot at his fences 

 because he is more than half a funker. Then take him by 

 the head as sharply as may be necessary, but the instant he 

 answers your pull, let up. Never keep a dead pull against 

 a horse's mouth. It is better to shift the bit from side to 

 side. If you keep on pulling long enough you will deaden 

 sensation and develope a real, not a temporary, puller. 

 After all, how is a horse to associate slackening his pace 

 with the slackening of your pull if you pull all the time ? 

 No horse is made a puller by being taken up short the 

 instant he begins to take liberties. The steady dead pull 

 on the flat, the jab in his mouth at his jump, are what do 

 the mischief. 



I cannot agree with the notion prevalent among 

 hunting men that hands are a gift, which, if a person is not 

 born with it, he can never attain, however hard he may try. 

 I grant this if it is a mere question of sensitiveness of touch, 

 but not if it comes, as I believe it generally does come, 

 from a faulty position of the hands. In contending this 



