252 RESTIVENESS: ITS PREVENTION AND CURE. 



into the company of other horses, and then trying to 

 get it away against its will, will often do the same ; or 

 wanting to force a horse over a jump it does not like, 

 &c. &c. Now, let us see what a horse does with itself 

 immediately before it actually does rear up. The rider 

 is perhaps just congratulating himself how nicely he is 

 getting along, when all of a sudden he feels as if the 

 horse had collapsed under him; his seat is " nowhere;" 

 its head or mouth has shrunk away from the feeling on 

 the mouthpiece, and it has got its legs under its body, 

 and is come to a dead stand-still the rider usually, 

 unless his seat be correct, falling forward with his 

 body, which of course makes matters worse. Then 

 most riders will give a great dig with their heels or 

 spurs just anywhere they can get at the horse, or per- 

 haps a blow with their whip, whereupon the animal 

 elevates itself on its hind legs, and becomes a rearer. 

 If the spurs, or even the whip, had been applied in 

 proper time that is to say, before the horse came to a 

 stand-still there would have been some use in them, 

 and it would probably never have come to rearing at all. 

 But if a man's legs are spread far away from the horse's 

 sides, and he thinks proper not only to dangle his reins, 

 but to sit with his back rounded in the so-called " know- 

 ing fashion," he will then have no " feeling in his seat," 

 and is consequently quite ignorant of what his horse is 

 going to do, and of course must come too late with both 

 spurs and whip, if he happen to possess these imple- 

 ments. An immense majority of rearers learn this vice 

 when being ridden about in a slovenly manner by 

 young riders or grooms ; a man that keeps a lively feel 

 of his horse with both his hand and heels, and pays 

 attention to the play of its ears and to every variation 



