66 HORSEMANSHIP. 



approaching perfection can be attained. Though the in- 

 born talent can neither be communicated nor self-acquired, 

 still the means of forming a fairly good and useful hand can 

 be imparted, and by practice and study a certain amount of 

 cultivation arrived at. Archer began riding as a child, and 

 the finest exhibitions of handling of horses I have ever seen 

 preponderate among those who have been in the saddle 

 from their youth upwards. My readers must not on this 

 account despair ; for though that indescribable finish, which 

 a few of either sex can lay claim to may be denied to them, 

 the safety, grace, and excellence of ordinary riding is, with 

 few exceptions, within the reach of all. 



To preserve a light, easy feeling upon the horse's mouth 

 the hands should not be clamped on to the reins like a 

 vice, but only sufficiently closed to prevent the reins slipping 

 or being drawn through the fingers. The alternate relaxa- 

 tion and contraction of the fingers on the reins, though all 

 but imperceptible, will be reciprocated by the horse j a sort 

 of electric current, so to speak, is by this operation estab- 

 lished and continued between the hand and the bars of 

 the mouth, any sense of " dead pull " is done away with, the 

 mouth does not become heated and hardened, the horse's 

 attention is kept on the qui vire, and he moves pleasantly 

 under full command. The hand must be one continued 

 active spring in correspondence with the motions of the 

 horse's head, and the lighter the play of the spring the better. 

 The hands that control with the most delicate touch always 

 hold the master-key. Force contre force may sometimes be 

 called for \ there is no rule without its exception, but with 

 horses the light hand wins the day. 



