CHAPTER II.

THE NECK-THE HEAD-THE MOUTH-THE TONGUE

CARRIAGE-FEELING.

WE have spoken of the horse's neck as being a lever, which of course, strictly speaking, supposes it to form nearly a straight line, and to possess only a very limited amount of flexibility, neither of which properties, in fact, perfectly belong to it.* But a well-shaped neck, well clothed with firm muscles, possesses both straightness and inflexibility sufficient to render it possible to apply to it the theory of lever action with perfect propriety. Such a neck will only deviate from the straight line to any considerable amount near its point of junction with the head, this latter also acting as a lever, and imparting to the whole that graceful curvature so pleasing to the eye even of the uninitiated— which is, however, not merely a matter of taste, being, in fact, an evidence of perfection of equilibrium and power.

It is scarcely necessary to say that there are almost infinite varieties of necks to be found amongst horses as regards these two very important items of straight

* The horse's neck really forms a double curve, one being turned upward, the other downward; the mechanical action results in a straight line forming the axis of the whole.

ness and inflexibility; it will, however, suffice for our present purpose to point out two extreme cases, the one of form-the ewe-neck; the other of want of stability-the long, straight, thin neck, scantily clothed with flabby muscles. The annexed figure shows how the direction of the pull of the reins is modified in each instance, and how this in its turn changes the

Fig. 6.

direction in which the neck acts on the back. We see that with the exaggerated ewe-neck the lever action goes downwards under the withers immediately on to the fore legs; with the long thin neck that bends throughout like a fishing-rod (as also with all horses broken and bitted on Baucher's principle), it goes upwards through the withers into the air, in both of these cases missing altogether the centre of motion;

whilst the intermediate position, combined with the requisite degree of stability, affords a pull in the desired direction, and, coupled with the weight of the rider, meets directly the action of the hind legs, the source of all propelling power.

Nor is this mere theory, for every one that has mounted a great variety of horses, and paid even a moderate degree of attention to their different styles of action, will at once recognise here the true reason of the star-gazer appearing to have his fore legs nailed to the ground by the lightest pull on the rein, whilst the croup and the hind legs are flung wildly about, no pressure of the rider's leg being capable of steadying them and keeping the brute straight, either at rest or in motion. Again, who that ever rode one of those long thin-necked, unstable, rainbow quadrupeds that are so apt to dazzle the eye of the uninitated, can ever forget the slipperiness of all its movements, and the painful sensation of being mounted on a machine composed of gutta percha and glass? all of which, making due allowance for the irritable tempers of such horses, is a necessary consequence of the pull of the reins being in a wrong direction.

Let us look at cavalry horses. The soldier has one hand for the reins and the other for his weapon: his efficiency depends altogether on his being able to use the latter with precision and rapidity; and this is an impossibility, unless, to use Sir Charles Napier's words, "the steed watches the edge of the weapon"-that is to say, follows the lightest movement of hand and heel instantaneously, as it were intuitively. The Minister of War of a certain German State once represented to his sovereign that it would be necessary to give the

whole of the cavalry sabres of a new pattern, the existing ones being two inches shorter than any others in use in foreign services, which would put our troops to great disadvantage: quoth his Excellency, "Then let my cavalry soldiers get two inches nearer to their opponents than has been hitherto the practice," replied Serenissimus. It is just this, it is an affair of inches; and these inches are widened into yards when the horse does not or cannot follow the reins instantaneously and accurately.

We have already pointed out several disadvantages of the mountain of pack that is built up on the shoulders of some cavalry horses; an additional one is, that it changes the line of direction in which the pull of the rein acts, so as to make it go right up into the sky, and altogether miss both hind and fore legs, thus placing all horses, whatever the excellences or defects of their organisation may be, on the same dead level of uncertainty and inaccuracy. It is not the weight alone of "the epitome of a Jew's old-clothes shop" that is so destructive, although this in itself is bad and absurd enough; what is still worse is the way in which that weight is distributed, so as not only to render all attempts at equilibrium impossible, but also to throw the bridle-hand of the rider so high that he cannot use any description of bit advantageously. A Cossack will load his horse to almost the same pernicious extent that most regular light cavalry men are compelled to do, and still neither the speed, the agility, nor the power of endurance of the little animal are impaired in anything like the same degree as happens with the troop-horse the weight is better distributed for all purposes. (Plate VI.)

No doubt it is scarcely possible to avoid some degree of pack on the front part of the military saddle, but it is precisely for this reason that it is so highly important to give the head of the troop-horse a proper position, which can only be maintained by very careful and accurate bitting, after that of the neck has been attained by a judicious system of riding and breakingin; and still one is astonished to see the pack of the officer built up into the same absurd form as that of the private, although there is no necessity whatever for this being done.

The reader perceives, by these frequent and unavoidable digressions, how intimately the question of bits and bitting is interwoven with the whole system of breaking-in and riding horses, especially for military purposes; and he will see farther on the great importance of this point, particularly when we come to discuss the immediate action of the bit on the interior of the horse's mouth.

We have next to consider the animal's head in connection with this question. Hitherto we have, for the sake of greater convenience, always mentioned the neck as the lever by which the rider controls the motion of the whole animal; but a simple inspection shows that the head is the lever by means of which we gain a command over the neck, and its size, weight, the manner in which it is set on to the latter, and other particulars, have each of them its own share of importance. It is scarcely necessary to say that a very large heavy head renders it a matter of extreme difficulty to get the horse into anything like equilibrium, and bigheaded horses will be therefore generally, although not always, heavy in the hand; but it by no means follows