Learn the Art Yourself, 75 



School-riding, there is a great gulf fixed. The 

 capital letter is advisedly used. A horse which 

 has been given a good mouth, and has been 

 taught as far as the volte and demi-volte, simple 

 and reversed (though indeed the riding-school 

 volte and the volte of the Haute Ecole are differ- 

 ent things), certainly knows a fairish amount, and 

 may be able to teach his rider much of what he 

 knows. But riding in a school is not road-riding, 

 although a school-horse may have profited well 

 by his education. Leaping a school hurdle is not 

 riding to hounds. A thoroughly good riding- 

 school horse may be a very brute when in the 

 park. Perfect manners within four walls may 

 disappear so soon as the horse gets a clear mile 

 ahead of him. Assuredly, it is well enough to 

 learn the rudiments at a good riding-school. But 

 if you ever want to become a thorough horseman 

 and have equally good horses, study the art for 

 yourself, — there is no mystery about it, — and 

 learn what a horse should know and how to teach 

 him. When you have done this, you will have a 

 satisfactory saddle beast. If you expect a groom 

 or a riding-school master to train your horses for 

 you, you will not have a perfect mouth or good 

 manners once in a hundred times. If the master 

 is expert, he will be too busy to do your horses 

 full justice short of an exorbitant honorarium. 

 The groom is, as a rule, both ignorant and impa- 

 tient, if not brutal. 



