IN THE RIDING-SCHOOL. 50 



you please tell me all the ways of holding the 

 reins r 



Your master does not laugh ; the joke is too 

 venerable, and he feels awe-struck as he hears 

 it, so ancient does it seem. 



"If you take your reins in one hand," he 

 says, " an easy way is to hold the snaffle on 

 your ring finger, and the left curb outside the 

 little finger, with the right curb between the 

 middle and fore fingers. Then, when you want 

 to use both hands, put your right little finger 

 and ring finger between the right curb and 

 right snaffle, and hold your hands at exactly even 

 distances from your body, and at exactly even 

 distances from your horse's head, with the two 

 reins firmly nipped by the thumbs resting on 

 the top of the fore-fingers. This is the way 

 recommended in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 

 in Colonel Dodge's ' Patroclus and Penelope,' 

 and you will see it in many very good hunting 

 pictures. 



" Colonel Anderson, in his 'On Horseback,' 

 recommends dividing the curb reins by the 

 little finger of the left hand and the snaffle 

 reins by the middle finger, carrying the ends 



