When I first learned driving scarcely anyone thought of going without bearing reins, they were considered by all, except a few who were looked upon as innovators, to be as necessary as the traces. Their utility, however, soon began to be questioned, and they rapidly came into disuse in the coaches, and no doubt horses do work easier to themselves without them, especially with heavy loads and fast pace. Still they are of use occasionally, and I have employed a slack one to the cheek of the bit when a horse has a trick of throwing out his head and snatching at his reins, and so making it impossible to prevent his rein slipping through the fingers, which should never occur.
I believe that bearing reins may also be useful, and indeed a security (though as a general rule I hate them) when, as is the fashion now, a pair of high-bred powerful horses are put to draw a Victoria or some other very light carriage, for doubtless a bit does act more powerfully when accompanied by a bearing rein than without one.
I dare say I shall be thought very old fashioned, but I do not think that horses do generally go as pleasantly to the coachman with such very light weights behind them, as when there is weight enough to make them feel their collars. A team, to go pleasantly, should have a load proportioned to its power, so that they may have something to pull at besides the coachman's hand. It must be admitted also in their favour, that bearing reins do prevent wheel horses rubbing and scratching their bridles against the pole chains when standing still.
Like many other old established institutions, they continued to have their advocates for a long time, and by some very competent judges bearing reins were considered necessary for safety, as will appear from the anecdote I am about to narrate. When they were first being dispensed with, Ned Cracknell, who drove a Birmingham day coach called the "Triumph," left them off. Upon the coach arriving at Hounslow one day, who should be standing there but Mr. Chaplin, commonly known as Billy Chaplin, the proprietor out of London, and before Cracknell had time to get on his box, though they were very quick in changing at Hounslow, he observed that there were no bearing reins, and only snaffle bits in the horses' mouths, whereupon he called out, "Hallo, Mr. Cracknell, what monkey tricks are these you are playing? If you don't put on the curb bits and the bearing reins, you don't take the 'Triumph' coach out of the 'Swan with Two Necks' again." Probably he was quite right about the snaffle bits, as the following instance will show:—
Seven mail coaches used to leave the "White Horse Cellars" every evening, and at one time there was a great rivalry between the Devonport mail, commonly called the "Quicksilver," driven by Captain Davies, and the Stroud mail, driven by Harry Downs, a broken-down gentleman, for here I may remark, though it is a fact well known to most people, that in those days it was no uncommon thing to see well-bred men driving stage-coaches. But to return. As the Stroud mail with four bright bays, and the "Quicksilver" with four bright chestnuts, were racing at a very merry pace, our friend Harry's bays, having only snaffle bits, bolted across Turnham Green, which would probably be a feat incapable of accomplishment now, and an old friend of mine, who was travelling by it, and by the bye a very good coachman himself, says, "I experienced a very unsmooth journey until we reached the road again, and by that time the 'Quicksilver' was through Brentford."
Of late years there has sprung up a fancy that blinkers are not only unnecessary, but absolutely an evil, and a good deal of newspaper correspondence has been the result, without going very far towards elucidating the subject. So far as I am able to understand the controversy, the opponents of blinkers consider they have proved their case when they tell us that horses, when accustomed to it, are not frightened by seeing the carriage behind them, and that therefore there can be no danger in going without them. That horses can be used to seeing the carriage behind them without taking fright, there can be no doubt, but that by no means ends the question. Those on the other side say, and with truth, that in double harness, when the bridles are without blinkers, one horse does occasionally, either from tossing his head or some other cause, injure the eye of the other one by striking it with the cheek of the bit. A well-fitting blinker is no discomfort to a horse, and I think I can bring forward a case which will go very far to prove that they may be of great use.
One evening when I was driving the "Harkaway" coach on the down journey, when within about a mile from Dolgelly, as we rounded a sharpish corner of the road, the leaders caught sight of some boards which had been left, very improperly, on the near side of the road, and were so much frightened at the sight that they bolted right across to the other side of the road, and, that being rather narrow, it was as much as I could do to prevent the coach running into the off-side hedge, which would most certainly have ended in a spill, and probably have been attended with very disastrous consequences, for, as was usual in summer, there was a good load of passengers and luggage.
We must recollect that a horse, from the position of his eye, has the power of seeing a long way behind him, which is necessary to his safety in a wild state, as he depends very largely for defence upon his heels; consequently, any object which alarms him continues in sight for a long time, and in the case I have just mentioned, I am certain that if they could have seen the object of their terror another moment, nothing I could have done would have saved an accident.
Perhaps I shall be told that if these horses had never been driven in blinkers they would not have shied at the boards; to which I can only answer that saddle horses which have never had their sight restricted in their lives are by no means free from the fault of shying. As I have already remarked, a well-fitting blinker can cause no discomfort to a horse, as it presses upon and rubs no part of the head, and, to say the least of it, they may be a great safeguard against accidents.
With regard to those other parts of the harness now more or less disused, what shall be said? Well, a good deal will depend upon circumstances. Where there is no bearing rein a crupper may not be necessary upon level roads if the pads are well shaped; but if they are not, or the road is hilly, those on the wheel horses may work forward and wound the withers. With leaders this is less likely to occur, for their reins run in a straight line through the pad territs; but the reins, taking a turn from the wheel pad territs up to the coachman's hand, have a tendency to work those pads forward.