Toby quickly turned his head with a friendly, encouraging whinny, as if he saw his co-worker’s trouble and wanted to give him what comfort he could.  He always seemed to know as well when his friend needed encouragement as when he required to be kept up to his duty.  It is a wonderful, wonderful thing, this bond between the good rider and the good horse!  It is so wonderfully close and strong; the closest and strongest binding the human being to his brute brother.  It is infinitely more subtle too, than that which binds any other, even the kindest master to the most faithful dog; for the man and his horse are not merely master and servant, they are friends and even equals in a way.  Neither is nearly so complete or powerful without the other; but together—­with body and spirit coming in living, throbbing contact—­they form the mightiest force in flesh and blood.  Along the marvellous electric currents of life there flashes from the man to the horse, intelligence, feeling, purpose, even thought perhaps, so that to the true horseman the centaur can never be wholly a fabulous creature.

One of the greatest things about this wonderful bond is that it reaches all classes of riders and horses.  Every good rider and every good horse may rely upon it, no matter which of the many roads through life they may travel together:  all may trustingly rely upon it till one or both shall have breasted “Sleep’s dreamy hill.”  The horse of the fox-hunter, of the race-rider, of the mounted soldier—­every one of these noble beasts has the fullest understanding of his rider’s calling, and gives it his completest sympathy with the greatest assistance in his power.  Who that has known the horse at his best can have failed to observe and recognize and be moved by this fact?  We have all seen that the hunter hardly needs the touch of his rider’s knee to be off like the wind and to go without urging from whip or spur on to the end of the chase; never flagging, no matter how long or hard it may be; never flinching at the deepest ditch nor fouling at the highest fence; straining every sinew to the last, for his rider’s defeat is his own failure, his rider’s success his own victory.  And we have all seen the gallant response of the race-horse to every movement of his rider’s body—­a loyal gallantry that ennobles even the merely mercenary; and the sight of these two—­now one—­flying toward the goal, always makes the heart beat faster and grow warm with its brave showing of this magical bond.  And above all, we have seen the trooper’s horse, which comes closer to him than the comrade fighting by his side; for it is to his horse more than to his sword that the soldier must owe any glory that he may hope to win; and when strength and courage can no longer serve, it is his horse that often gives his own body to shield his rider from death.