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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from On Horsemanship by Xenophon: degree of roughness by keeping it slack or taut.
[4] See Morgan, op. cit. p. 144 foll.
But, whatever the type of bit may be, let it in any case be flexible.
If it be stiff, at whatever point the horse seizes it he must take it
up bodily against his jaws; just as it does not matter at what point a
man takes hold of a bar of iron,[5] he lifts it as a whole. The other
flexibly constructed type acts like a chain (only the single point at
which you hold it remains stiff, the rest hangs loose); and while
perpetually hunting for the portion which escapes him, he lets the
mouthpiece go from his bars.[6] For this reason the rings are hung in
the middle from the two axles,[7] so that while feeling for them with
On Horsemanship |
