26 RIDING AND TRAINING SADDLE-HORSES. 



been bumped and jolted into a smooth and solid union 

 with your saddle. It is by the absence of this union, and 

 by the abrupt shocks and displacements to which they 

 are consequently exposed, that so many riders are dis- 

 abled from acquiring the proper use of their hands and 

 legs ; consequently from ever becoming masters of their 

 horses." 



The next step should be to free yourself from your 

 bondage to the person who has up to this time managed 

 your horse for you ; and a real bondage it is, as you will 

 find when you first attempt to take him in hand yourself. 

 You may even have been somewhat accustomed to riding 

 before your present exercises commenced, yet you will 

 feel very awkward when you first attempt to repeat your 

 lessons while managing the animal yourself ; for the 

 mere fact cf having to do something with your hands 

 will have a tendency to constrain your position. It gives 

 the body another employment, and the combination of 

 demands upon it, and upon the attention, must be made 

 familiar before it can become easy. There is no other 

 rule than to learn one thing at a time, and then to learn 

 the combination of each with all that has preceded it, 

 before taking the next step ; and this rule is equally 

 applicable to the man and to the horse. Both are ** get- 

 ting the knack" of an artificial habit, and they must 

 learn it gradually, or they will never learn it at all. 



Major Francis D wyer, an English ofiicer in the Austrian 

 cavalry service, wrote a work on ^' Seats and Saddles, Bits 

 and Bitting," which has the advantage of being, in some 

 respects, different from other books about horsemanship. 



The theory advanced with regard to seats is, that at a 



