134 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 
which he thought necessary. Her record was 2.294. 
One day, at his request, John Splan drove the mare, 
and by the simple device of letting out the check rein 
a few holes, Mr. Splan reduced her record to 2.24}. 
“ Any one,” he says, “could have driven the mare 
the same mile, as she was very steady, and it required 
no particular skill to manage her. She simply wanted 
to be properly harnessed. It is just as easy to choke 
a horse by checking him too high, and forcing the 
tongue back into the entrance of the throat, as it 
would be in any other way. I have seen one or two 
horses die in harness that I am sure were choked to 
death.” 1 
The horse should never be checked on the driving 
bit, for this practice tends to spoil his mouth. Even 
when a side check is used, it should be attached to a 
small rubber or leather-covered flexible bit, not con- 
nected in any way with the driving bit. This ar- 
rangement is an uncommon one, but I have tested 
it thoroughly, and am convinced of its superiority. 
Of course, when a horse has the weight of a carriage 
to draw, the discomfort of a check rein too short is 
greatly increased. Splan says: “I think that, as a 
tule, road horses are checked entirely too high. To 
place a horse’s head in that position, and then ask him 
to pull five hundred pounds of weight at a high rate 
of speed, is wrong. The horse is not only uncomfort- 
‘ I quote from the instructive work “ Life with the Trotters,” to 
which I have referred in a previous chapter. Mr. Splan is a horse- 
man of great acuteness, and as a driver cool, resolute, and full of 
resource. A man of much experience on the track once remarked, 
“Tf a horse were going to trot for my life I should like to have him 
conditioned by Budd Doble and driven by John Splan.” 
