Open bridles should be used to begin with, and afterwards the blind bridle may be substituted. A driving-horse should be equally at home with either kind. While a plain snaffle is preferable for most horses, it will not always answer. In that case, the only way is to experiment with different bits until a suitable one is found. A severe bit should never be used except as a last resort.
The abuse of overdraw checks cannot be too severely reprobated. Many a good horse has his mouth and temper ruined, and his neck muscles made rigid instead of remaining, as they should, flexible and pliable, by the inordinate craze for the "Kimball Jackson" check. Some horses may, and probably do, require it; but, in my opinion, they are few and far between. Many road drivers seem to think such a check must be used on a fast trotter. It is well to recall that Jay-Eye-See, the first horse to trot a mile in 2.10, was driven with a side-check; and Lou Dillon, who has trotted a mile in 1.58½, and is the two-minute marvel of the day, goes without any check whatever. These two noted examples should silence all arguments about the necessity for an overdraw check in order to increase the speed.
The pleasure of a driving-horse depends as much as anything else upon his stopping and standing wherever and whenever you wish him to do so. Young horses are often impatient of this restraint, coming at irregular intervals and places, and it is one of the hardest things to train a horse to do. A good plan is to have them follow behind a wagon, particularly if loaded with hay, and have the wagon start and stop, and the colt you are driving behind it do likewise. This stopping and starting seems to him more natural, coming as it does from the forcible argument of a load of hay in front of him, rather than a pulling on his mouth from behind.
Just as the American trotting-bred horse makes the most agreeable harness-horse in the world, so he is well worth all the time and patience required to make him what he can become. A few months' kindliness, firmness, and patience when his schooling begins mean years of pleasure and safety to his owner later on. Above all, get all idea out of your head of "breaking" a horse. He is the last animal in the world to be made companionable or useful by being beaten and roughly handled and, as the phrase is, "broken." In his bitting, harnessing, and handling he should be made to do things by patience rather than by force. The notion that a horse should never be allowed to refuse to do what is required of him, but that he should there and then be beaten into obedience is not only a false notion, but results badly. Instead of thrashing him past what he shies at, it is far better in the end to keep at the problem day after day until he learns through habit rather than by the whalebone. It takes more time, but in the end the results are far more satisfactory. It is in these early days of the training of the road-horse or harness-horse that the wise owner puts all he knows of bitting, harnessing, shoeing, and feeding into practice. It is at these times, too, that he learns by scores of experiments which of the many counsels he has read or listened to is the wisest. It may be said, indeed, that an owner is and remains partially ignorant and incompetent, until he has watched and bitted and driven, day after day, an equine problem of his own.
CHAPTER XI
A CHAPTER OF LITTLE THINGS
The success of every drive, whether with one horse, two horses, four horses, or six horses, depends upon three things: the comfort of your horse, yourself, and your passengers.