cm BONO? 193 



8. He must, with good courage and endurance, have 

 perfect manners, and never sulk, get nervous or flurried, 

 alone or in company, or act otherwise than as a horse 

 treated with uniform kindness and firmness should act. 

 His mouth must be velvet, but still capable of feeling 

 your hand, and all his instincts must be keen and 

 lively. 



With these accomplishments you have a " saddle-horse " 

 sufficiently well trained for any ordinary purpose of pleas- 

 ure ; but you have only laid the foundation for a high- 

 school education. Your steed has merely got the three 

 ^''s — reading, Hting, and rithmetic. 



To give a horse this knowledge presupposes some skill 

 in the trainer ; properly to ride such a horse equal knowl- 

 edge. Every one who rides habitually has time to learn 

 the art to the above quoted extent ; and a horse so trained 

 need by no means be so delicate that he requires an ex- 

 pert to ride him. With courage, intelligence, and good 

 manners, this education will only make him more tracta- 

 ble and more handy in whatever place you put him. 



To do all this is by no means beyond the skill of any 

 one who is really fond of horses and horsemanship. To 

 him who rides merely because his doctor has confided to 

 him that he has a liver, or because every one else rides, I 

 would say, buy your article ready-made. 



But wherein is such a horse the better for road-riding ? 

 asks our chappie with the crop and irreproachable nether 

 garments. No whit, friend, unless education be better 

 than ignorance. If Mother Goose satisfies you, you do 

 not need Homer or Dante or Shakespeare or Goethe — and 

 Heaven forefend that I should underrate Mother Goose ! 

 Mind you, I have not said that a hunter or a polo-pony 

 needs these accomplishments, though he would undenia- 

 bly be the better for some of them. But these horses 



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