148 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 
never forget —the feeling of horrid anticipation with 
which I glanced at his legs. But fortunately, the 
ground being soft, the hair had not been taken off, so 
that the cob’s selling value remained as it had been. 
I remounted, and “carrying his head in my hand,” 
rode the rest of the way, divided between the fear of 
being late for an important engagement and of spoil- 
ing the horse, to say nothing of my own neck. But 
when your mount arrives at this condition, when he 
feels like a block of wood beneath you, all his elas- 
ticity being gone, and especially if he begins to stum- 
ble, the better plan is to get off and walk. The most 
skilful riding cannot with any certainty keep him on 
his legs. However, if your journey be a matter of 
life and death, or if you prefer to take the gambler’s 
chance of finishing it without an accident, your only 
course is to maintain a firm hold of the bit,— not a 
dead pull, but a “sensational,” enlivening pull, and at 
the same time to touch up the faltering nag with whip 
or spur. If he is allowed when tired to drop into 
his natural lethargic condition, he will quickly be 
down in the dust. 
Stumbling horses will sometimes fall even when 
going at a walk; they do so most frequently at a jog 
trot, and the likeliest spot for such an accident is near 
the bottom of a hill, where the ground still declines, 
but, the steepness of the descent being past, the horse 
relaxes his attention. “It is not at a desperate ‘hiv- 
erman’ pace, and over very bad roads, that a horse 
tumbles and smashes his knees, but on your par- 
ticularly nice road, when the horse is going gently 
and lazily, and is half asleep, like the gemman on 
his back.” 
