Wilmar, Minn., Feb. 17, 1906.
Sir: Two copies of Trotwood’s Monthly have been sent me, and I greatly enjoyed the well-chosen, readable articles, and think there must surely be a field for such a magazine.
In “Educating the Horse,” you give a much-needed warning against the abuse of the checkrein, and the following is written in the hope that so great a lover of horses as your article shows you to be may pick up a real sharp-pointed pen and with black ink give somebody a well-meant, gentlemanly roasting. Like your monthly, it is dedicated to the horse.
The name of Jackson is greatly revered by the American people, and deservedly so; for there have been distinguished soldiers, statesmen, horsemen and whole-souled Southern gentlemen among the Jacksons, but there was one of that name who, I think, ought to have his effigy placed in front of every judge’s stand at every racecourse of the nation. This particular one is the Mr. Jackson who invented that rotten abomination called the Jackson, but now called the overdraw checkrein.
I think not one sound reason can be given for its use, not even on the score of ornament, and twenty could be given against it. It is as cruel as the “scavenger’s daughter,” which the guides will show you in the torture chamber in the Tower of London, and works on the same principle, and is kin to the diabolical contrivance so graphically described by Charles Reade in his inimitable novel, “It Is Never Too Late to Mend,” and again works on the same principle.
Some of the best horsemen, the most carelessly careful drivers, and the best horses are to be found in the coaching clubs in large cities, particularly in New York.
Do you suppose there is money enough in all New York City to induce one of those men to use that check to drive a coach load of people down Broadway at a busy time, or up and down the Adirondacks or Catskills, where close driving and short, quick turning are wanted? Not much, and he does not like spoiling his horses’ necks and legs; besides he wants them to plunge into their collars at a word.
The only two lines that can be effectively used against it, I think, are fashion and ridicule. Make its use “bad form,” and guy it into the ground.
Every user of that check rein ought to memorize some of the sublime lines of Shakespeare. Anyhow, every time he checks a horse up he ought to repeat that immortal speech of Dogberry.
GEORGE MADDISON.