of racehorses give to their lads. When a rider keeps
shifting the position of her hands, her bewildered animal will be unable
to know at what speed she wants him to travel. All this reads very
simple, but sometimes we find that horses, especially when excited by
hounds, insist on going at their own pace. If the coast is clear in
front, and the horseman in advance has got safely over and away from the
fence to which a lady is approaching, it would not be wise for her to
interfere with her hunter, because, if he knows his business, he won't
fall if he can help it. But if, on the other hand, the only practicable
place in a fence is not free, the keenness of the animal must be checked
by a judicious use of the curb. If he is so headstrong as to refuse to
obey this command by slackening speed, he should be turned round either
to right or left, whichever may be the easier for his rider. When we
find ourselves in such a tight corner we must, for our own safety as
well as for that of our neighbours, exercise a certain amount of force
in controlling our horses. The "silken thread" method of handling, which
is, or should be, employed at any other time, stands us in poor stead in
the face of this difficulty. There are horses which will neither slacken
speed nor turn for their riders, and a runaway in the hunting field is
by no means rare. If any lady has a hunter who takes charge of her in
this manner, I would strongly advise her to ride him in a standing
martingale (p. 82), because with its aid she will generally be able to
turn him, even if she cannot stop him in any other way. A horse which
will neither slacken speed nor turn in any direction gallops on, as a
rule, with his head up, and, having succeeded in shifting the snaffle
from the bars to the corners of his mouth, he is impervious to the
action of the curb, because his head is too high for the curb to act
with advantage. On such an animal the standing martingale is valuable,
because it makes him keep his head in a proper position. A great deal
of sound sense has been written by different horsemen on the subject of
"hands." Sam Chifney tells us to use the reins as if they were silken
threads which any sharp pull would break, and Mr. John Hubert Moore
always gave the advice to take a pull at the reins as though you were
drawing a cork out of a bottle without wishing to spill one drop of its
contents. I have often, in my own mind, likened a horse's mouth to a
piece of narrow