;30 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



horsOj not a petty tyrant on a pigskin tlirone, 

 mounted on a willing or unwilling slave. Each 

 motion of the rider's steed should incline the rider's 

 figure this way or that, and there should be no 

 stiffness nor rigidity. To the light hand the 

 horse should arch his neck and play Avitli the bit 

 as if he held it in his mouth as a toy for pleasure. 

 The length of the stirrup had best be rather 

 long — it has a more graceful look ; and less weight 

 being on the iron than when the leather is short, 

 if the stirrup breaks and the iron falls, the rider 

 feels it less than if he had put more weight in his 

 foot and less grasji with the thigh and knee. The 

 rider ought never to lose his temper (excellent 

 advice that, but where is the man who ever 

 followed it I), for it is temjDcr or nervousness, they 

 are much the same, that makes the horse to rush ; 

 that makes him, in nine cases out of ten, pull ; that 

 causes him madly to fall into his fences, or to 

 shut up and to refuse to jump in any ^vsiJ what- 

 ever. I have seen a friend of mine, a clergyman, 

 by his own nervousness, cause his horse to rush 

 and run away with liim at every grip in a field ; so 

 that, from this inculcated insanity in the horse, 

 it was not safe to let the parson ride l)y the 



