FOR PEACE AND WAR. 147 



object of the first lesson given in this system of training ; and, 

 as observed, that object is attainable by different means, suitable 

 to the varieties of form, habit, and temper exhibited by the horses 

 placed in the breaker's hands. 



If I be right in these views, founded as they are on the first 

 principles of mechanical philosophy, it would follow that for 

 contracted hoofs, ring-bone, navicular disease, splents, spavins, 

 •curbs, shoulder lameness, and all the rest of the organic diseases 

 which affect horses, as well as in those supposed cases of lameness 

 which are only the results from irregular and unbalanced action, 

 the enlightened riding master should be applied to and not the 

 veterinary surgeon ; for the former can remove the original cause 

 of the evil, the latter only prescribe for the effects from it. 



ON THE SADDLE. 



To attain to such a seat as will secure equilibrium and thus 

 afford personal ease and comfort and facility for command over the 

 horse, ought to be the first object of the tyro ; and the formation 

 of it will be rendered easier by attention to some very simple 

 •elementary considerations. 



It is one of the rudimeutal laws of gravitation, that if any body, 

 such as the person of a rider on horse-back, overhang the base on 

 which it is supported, it will have a tendency to fall over, which 

 •can only be counteracted by external force, or by the exertion of 

 muscular tenacity. 



Now, the base on which the person of the horseman is supported, 

 is, alternately, the saddle and the stirrups; it follows, therefore, 

 that the rider will have a tendency to fall off, whenever his person 

 is not directly over its point of support, on the saddle or in the 

 stirrups, as the case may be; and this tendency he can only 

 counteract by adequate muscular exertion. 



But as all his muscular force (independent of the awkwardness 

 and fatigue attendant on such continued exertion) ought to be 

 employed in the control of his horse, or in such other exigencies 

 as may arise, it becomes desirable, in the first place, that he shall 



