230 RIDING 



vating the instinctive muscular actions that follow the applica 

 tion of the aids is the only true mode of controlling an animal 

 which is stronger than its master. Had Baucher stopped 

 short at this theory he had done well ; but he carried his art 

 too far for the masses, and there is no doubt that by his later 

 theories, training was carried beyond the skill of the ordinary 

 rider. All who desire to have a thorough knowledge of the 

 art of horsemanship should make a study of Baucher, and 

 experience will teach them where their skill and aptitude 

 demand a halt. Of the more recent works published in 

 France those of De Montigny are the most thorough and the 

 best. 



Except in the higher training of horses, the English are far 

 and away the best horsemen in the world. It is because I 

 believed this, and because I felt the importance of better 

 methods of training than those now employed in this country, 

 that I have so often ventured to address English horsemen 

 upon the subject of thorough schooling. In breeding horses, 

 in rearing, and in caring for them, in racing them and in riding 

 them across country, the Englishman is easily first. No man 

 can drive like an Englishman, and there is no man who under- 

 stands and appreciates the animal better. But there is one 

 form of the art in which he fails : that is in so suppling and unit- 

 ing the horse that the animal is under immediate and certain 

 control : he looks upon the spur simply as an instrument for 

 inciting the horse to greater speed, and loses more than half of 

 the control that one should have over the animal by neglecting 

 that discipline of the rider's legs which is not only a power in 

 itself but is of the greatest assistance to the hand. I have 

 seen a continental trainer, whose seat and awkward movements 

 would bring him into ridicule in the Row do more with a 

 young horse in an hour than the best horseman I have seen in 

 England could do in a week. I do not recommend ' High 

 School ' riding for general purposes, but every man who rides 

 should know the principles of some good method, and he 



