212 BREAKING AND RIDING 



to have quite a loose seat, and others having 

 irreproachable seats have rather ugly hands than 

 otherwise. Of course we see both good hands 

 and good seats — which means brains allied with 

 practice — and, alas, bad ones also, which means 

 that practice is needed. 



Good riders have brains on a horse at all 

 events, and often off them too. For men who 

 can take care of themselves over horses are 

 pretty quick in other matters as a rule. 



Let us point out the defects in different kinds 

 of seats: i. Loose seat, with stirrups which 

 are too long. 2. The reverse. 3. A rider who 

 does not use his calves to grip with, as he 

 ought to do. 



In fact, a good horseman has a species of an 

 all-round seat. He grips with his calves, not 

 his thighs, and also saves himself the exhaus- 

 tion of gripping all the time, by riding partly 

 through good balance and also through know- 

 ledge gained from the horse's mouth, and from 

 the way in which his horse moves. Thus, he 

 anticipates kicking, shying, refusing, a stumble, 

 rearing, bolting, and other equine peculiarities 

 which he is familiar with, because he has ridden 

 all sorts of mounts in his time ; and so is able to 

 quickly make up his mind whether the one he is 

 riding is going to be troublesome or not. A good 

 horseman, therefore, has the great advantage of 

 being able to get on confidential terms with his 

 mount in a very short space of time. He can tell 

 in the twinkling of an eye if he is likely to have a 

 fight for the mastery, and knows that when the 



