LIFE WITH THE TEOTTEKS. 299 



lave a better mouth, tlian others, but with time, care and 

 attention any horse's mouth, no matter how bad, can be 

 improved. My idea is first to see that the horse's teeth are 

 in proper condition. Unless you are a veterinary dentist 

 yourself do not undertake to fix his mouth. Get the best 

 veterinary dentist you luiow of, tell him if the horse has any 

 peculiarities about driving on one rein, lugging or pulling 

 in any disagreeable manner, and if the dentist understands 

 his business and the habits are caused by any trouble with 

 Ms teeth, or mouth he will be able to remove the cause and 

 in time the horse will forget his bad habits. Horses are a 

 ^ood deal like men about that, it takes them a good bit 

 longer to forget a bad habit than it does to learn one, so 

 that it sometimes requires a great deal of patience to over- 

 come a slight fault. 



After the teeth and mouth are properly looked after, the 

 next thing in line are the bits. My experience has been that 

 no horse can be successfully driven with anything like a 

 severe bit. I never saw one that was even broken of the 

 kabit of pulling in that way. If you put a severe bit in a 

 horse's mouth and pull on it it makes the horse mad and 

 Irritates him; the further you drive him and the harder you 

 pull him, the more he will pull against it. When I was a 

 boy almost every trotter I saw would pull in a disagreeable 

 manner when being driven at top speed. At the present 

 time I can not think of one horse that is anything like first 

 •class, that pulls enough to make it disagreeable for a man 

 nt any time. A great many people think that every horse 

 should be driven with an overcheck. I can remember when 

 I had the same opinion myself. I am now satisfied that it 

 is a serious mistake. There are a great many horses that 

 will not take kindly to an overcheck, and if you insist on 

 using it on them it will sooner or later spoil the horse' s dis- 

 position to a great extent. The plainest case of the kind 

 that ever came into my hands was Fanny Witherspoon. She 

 Jiad been trained for a number of years and always with an 

 overcheck. I myself trained her for over a year in the same 



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