Commencing to Leap. 143 



short skirts of the day enable her to use her left 

 leg as readily as you can. 



The gallop comes of itself, and needs but care 

 that your own position is good and does not 

 lose firmness or interfere with your hands. Bet- 

 ter sit down to the gallop. The jockey habit of 

 galloping in the stirrups is rarely of use except 

 as a means of changing your own seat and some- 

 times of easing your horse across ploughed fields 

 or bad ground. It is never proper for the road. 



XLIII. 



Having got thus far, you will surely want to 

 teach the mare to jump and yourself to sit her 

 firmly when she does so. Perhaps you may 

 choose to defer the tedious processes described 

 and go at jumping at once. 



If you think you can sit a fairish jump, prob- 

 ably the best plan is to follow the hounds in a 

 quiet way some day, if it happens to be in their 

 season. A great many horses will jump imita- 

 tively when in company and do pretty clean sim- 

 ple work. There is a bit of a chance for a blun- 

 der this way, because a horse unused to jumping 

 cannot gauge his work and may come down. 

 But by taking him slowly at his fences, perhaps 

 at a walk, there is comparatively little risk. It is 

 the exceptional horse who will jump well in cold 

 blood, like Patroclus in the illustrations. But 



