450 MILITARY RIDING. 



Officers and men are given good seats in our military riding 

 schools ; but no advance in the science of the aids has been 

 made in these establishments since the battle of Waterloo, 

 as far as I can find out. When I took my first lessons as 

 a cadet in the Royal Artillery Riding School, Woolwich, 

 forty years ago, the system of equitation was then the 

 same as that practised as far back as the oldest soldier 

 at that time could remember, and is the one now in 

 vogue. We have seen that a knowledge of the applica- 

 tion of the aids cannot be acquired without an acquaint- 

 ance with the paces of the horse, about which forms of 

 equine locomotion little or nothing was known forty or even 

 thirty years ago. We accordingly find in the present 

 Cavalry Drill book, the following wrong and unscientific 

 method for the rein back : " Each man will feel both reins 

 lightly, by turning the little fingers towards the breast ; and 

 will press both legs to the horse's sides to raise his forehand 

 and keep his haunches under him ; the rider must not have 

 a dead pull on the horse's mouth, but should ease the reins 

 after every step, and feel them again." By referring to page 

 247, we can see that these directions of feeling both reins, 

 raising the forehand, and keeping the horse's haunches under 

 him in the rein back, are opposed to good horsemanship. 

 In Cavalry Drill, the aids being limited to the hands and 

 legs, no advantage is taken of the distribution of the rider's 

 weight as an aid ; and the leg which serves as an aid in 

 regulating the lateral movements of the hind-quarters, acts 

 by " closing " or by " a stronger pressure," and not by being 

 drawn back, as ought to be done. The portion of the horse's 

 side which would be acted upon by the closing of either 

 leg, according to our cavalry practice, would be so close to 

 the centre of gravity of the weight to be moved (that of the 

 horse and rider), that such pressure would be useless, if not 

 detrimental to the object in view. Also, when sitting upright 



