RIDIXa ON THE ROAD. 47 



and will often succeed in completing the discomfiture 

 of his rider, who is already partly unseated. 



I will now point out a few things to be attended 

 to which will enable anyone to improve their 

 method of riding, and dealing with their horse 

 generally. This does not come under the head of 

 breaking in a young horse that has never had a 

 rider, but assumes that the horse is accustomed to 

 being ridden. In order to ride the horse it is first 

 necessary to mount him, and here at the very outset 

 the defective nature of his education shows, for very 

 few horses fresh from the breaker's hands will stand 

 still to be mounted without being held tight by the 

 man who is going to mount him, and many of them 

 require to be held by someone else as well. 



One of the best ways of teaching a horse not to 

 do anything you don't want him to do is to arrange 

 matters so that it is difficult, if not impracticable, 

 for him to do what you don't want him to do. 



Now, it is impossible for a horse to move forward 

 when there is a brick wall immediately in front of 

 his head, and therefore, when you want to cure him 

 of moving forward as you are getting up, you should 

 turn him with his head to a wall. Most youncr 

 horses are often mounted in the stableyard, and the 

 best way of mounting them is to lead them out of 

 the stable, and then turn them round and shut the 

 stable-door. The horse can then only move to one 

 side or the other ; and it is much easier to prevent 



