212 THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER 



reader with anecdotes of skilful riding rather than 

 endurance on the part of either man or horse. 

 Circus-riders acquire a particular kind of skill, fox- 

 hunters acquire another kind, and soldiers are drilled 

 into a certain dexterity of riding- quite different from 

 the other two. 



Circus-riders have to begin early in life, and out 

 of the youngsters who make a beginning there are 

 few that get beyond mediocrity, and many of them 

 gradually sink till they become tent men or stable- 

 men. Of course, circus horses must be carefully 

 trained as well as their riders ; but any one who has 

 been to the ' Military Tournaments ' of the last two 

 or three years, and seen the ' Musical Eide ' of the 

 Life Guards, and other feats of horsemanship per- 

 formed by non-commissioned ofi&cers and men of our 

 eavalry, must admit there are some splendid riders 

 in the army. The way the horse would lie down 

 and form a bulwark for the soldier to fire his carbine 

 and perform other military exercises over its body 

 has always excited a great deal of interest. But 

 the Trench are not far behind our men in the 

 riding school, if they are in the open, as the follow- 

 ing description of some of their evolutions will 

 show : 



'In 1865, when present at the opening of a 

 French horse-show, in the Palace of Industry in the 

 Champs Elysees, a troop of pupils of the cavalry 

 school of Saumur appeared in the arena, dressed in 



