76 RIDING RECOLLECTIONS. 



your fingers, for, once lost, it will not easily be 

 regained. 



Draw your reins gently to an equal length, and as- 

 certain the precise bearing on your horse's mouth that 

 seems, while he is yet in a walk, to influence his action 

 without offending his sensitiveness. But this cannot 

 be accomplished with the hands alone ; these members, 

 though supposed to be the prime agents of control, will 

 do little without the assistance of legs and knees 

 pressing the sides and flanks of the animal, so as 

 to urge him against the touch of his bit, from which 

 he will probably show a tendency to recoil, and, as 

 it is roughly called, " forcing him into his bridle. " 



The absence of this leg-power is an incalculable dis- 

 advantage to ladies, and affords the strongest reason, 

 amongst many, why they should be mounted only on 

 temperate and perfectly broken horses. How much 

 oftener would they come to grief but that their seat 

 compels them to ride with such long reins as insure 

 light hands, and that their finer sympathy seems fully 

 understood and gratefully appreciated by the most 

 sympathetic of all the brute creation ! 



The style adopted by good horsewomen, especially 

 in crossing a country, has in it much to be admired, 

 something, also, to be deprecated and deplored. They 



