If the trouble comes from weakness of the loins, the corrective is progressive exercise of the loin or ilio-spinalis muscles by such movements as reversed pirouettes, backing, and standing; but these are not always effective.
A horse which "makes forces" is not agreeable to ride until it is cured of the failing, because of the uncertainty of control, since it may, at the slightest occasion for bad will or fear of objects, resist and refuse to obey the rider's effects. Very generally, too, the fault is accompanied by some other difficulty with the mouth, and the horse lolls with its tongue, puts its tongue over the bit, or pulls its tongue back behind the bit and carries it rolled into a ball.
Various bits have been invented to remedy these tricks. Fillis recommends a bit with a palette to come in the middle of the free portion of the tongue. In a class for ladies' saddle horses at the National Horse Show in New York City, among twenty-five horses, I found five with rings in their mouths, fastened with strings to the bits. The tongue passed through the ring, and of course had to stay there.
I have, myself, had a number of horses which "made forces"; and I have tried every sort of bit. No bit has been a complete corrective. Yet I have cured every case but one, a thoroughbred steeplechaser named "Minstrel," a very powerful animal, whose bars were too sharp, and so near together that there was insufficient room for the tongue.
