i 4 6 THROUGH STABLE AND SADDLE-ROOM. 



me no trouble, and a child can drive her with 

 the most perfect ease. 



Should it ever be the reader's fortune to be 

 troubled with a hard-pulling horse, I can most 

 confidently and strenuously urge him to profit by 

 these experiences. 



A breast-plate is necessary in the hunting-field 

 alone, and even there its use is being abandoned, 

 since, as its purpose is to keep a saddle from 

 slipping back, it is not required save in hilly 

 countries, and for horses which are light-ribbed, 

 and whose conformation in this respect favours the 

 working back of the saddle. It is now the fashion 

 to discard them in Leicestershire, inasmuch as it is 

 de rigueur to eschew one particle of unnecessary 

 saddlery ; and certainly, if there is no use for them, 

 why retain them ? I must admit, however, that I 

 am conservative, or old-fashioned enough to like 

 them, and there must, in my opinion, be times 

 when they are useful. They always to me seem to 

 be the badge of a hunter. 



For the information of the reader, I will endea- 

 vour to describe what a breast-plate is. A loose 

 collar formed of a leather strap about an inch wide, 

 which, passing over the withers of the horse, is 

 joined together above the breast-bone, and is there 

 met by a broader strap, which latter passes between 



