86 SEATS AND SADDLES. 



horses to perfectly equal action on both sides as is 

 necessary for military purposes, where all must be 

 brought as nearly as possible to one standard of action, 

 or for draught, where the team should trot alike it will 

 be better to employ the " bobbing up and down system " 

 than English riding. The Americans understand and 

 apply this in the training of their great trotters : few 

 English horses can compete with them, because their 

 trot is uneven. But of course there is no use in at- 

 tempting a combination of "wash-ball," or "tongs across 

 a wall," with " bobbing ;" it will never succeed in 

 anything but shaking the rider's lungs out : the nearly 

 perpendicular tread on the stirrup, with an elastic 

 ankle to break the jolt, is imperative. The Orientals, 

 who use shovel stirrups, and stand straight on the en- 

 tire sole of the foot, never attempt trotting their 

 paces are walk or gallop. Arab horses have, however, 

 a tremendous trot if you can bring them to it ; but you 

 must sit like wax, and have the delicate hand of a first- 

 rate pianist to do the trick ; for nothing stronger than 

 a single hair from a fair lady's head is fit for a rein. 



There exists in many minds a strong prejudice on the 

 subject of its easing the horse to tuck up the rider's 

 legs, and that nothing tires it so much as a long dang- 

 ling weight under its belly. In the first place, it comes 

 to this, that a giant should not mount a pony; then, 

 again, why dangle the legs'? They have a better 

 chance of lying close to the horse's body if the stirrup 

 be placed nearly under the seat, which does not involve 

 their being too long; and further, how if the rider's body 

 be made to dangle in the air over the horse's back, in 

 consequence of the attempt to tuck up the legs ? This 

 is still more dangerous : one sees every day horses reel- 



