70 RIDING 



been properly treated or not ; whereas if their horses had been 

 carefully longed by a thoroughly competent man, and the 

 horse had done well and improved in his lessons as he ought, 

 the verdict would have been all the other way. 



I am supposing that there is a school available for breaking 

 the horse ; and here it may not be out of place to say some- 

 thing as to the shape and dimensions of a building for this, 

 purpose. All military riding schools are rectangular, the best 

 of them being about 150 feet by 50. Now I am not going to 

 find fault with the shape of military schools, for I am certain 

 that for all the purposes they are ordinarily required to fulfil 

 they cannot well be improved upon. If, however, I were about 

 to build a school solely for the purpose of training young 

 horses, and not for drilling recruits or any other service for 

 which a military school is needed, I would build a square 

 one. The corners would then be at equal distances from 

 each other, and would not, as is the case in a long rectangular 

 school, necessitate making two turns at a short distance from 

 each other at the narrow ends, whilst the horses have to go 

 about three times the distance down the long sides before 

 coming to the short ends again. When longeing also, if the 

 school were square the horse would not have the same oppor- 

 tunities (if you took the centre of it to longe him in) of get- 

 ting away when crossing the centre that he has in the long 

 narrow school, as he would be equidistant from the sides all 

 the way round. One thing against a square school is that one 

 horse at a time only could be longed (unless it was a very large 

 one), whereas in a long rectangular school two horses can be 

 longed simultaneously, one at each end. However, I should 

 prefer a square school, and if there were plenty of room would 

 build it about 40 yards each way. 



On the day of the first lesson the horse should be led 

 quietly into the school, in the snaffle bridle he is going to be 

 longed in a few times round it, so as to get him a little accus- 

 tomed to the place ; in fact, it would have been as well if he had 

 been led a few times round there during his previous daily 



