What to Teach 199 



comfortable to ride, but '* hacks " pure and simple 

 are rare in England now; most saddle-horses are 

 bred to be either racers, hunters, or polo ponies. It 

 is probably for this reason that we Britishers have 

 not generally adopted the methods of Baucher and 

 his disciples. The hunting man, for instance, must 

 have a horse trained to use his shoulders with com- 

 plete freedom, or he will not get the best pace out of 

 his mount when he requires it, and will probably 

 come to grief when jumping a fence with a ditch 

 on the landing side. 



Doubtless the arched-neck, nose-in system of 

 trainings, places the horse in the most advantageous 

 position for control and with his hocks more under 

 him, perhaps because, the arching being unnatural, 

 he endeavors to escape from it by throwing his 

 weight back. But leaving the hack out of the 

 question, do these advantages compensate for the 

 loss of that freedom which is so essential in the field ? 

 We can always get a horse back on his hocks when 

 occasion arises without this iron-bound system. 

 The other extreme, the position the racing trotter 

 is made to assume, with his nose poked out and up 

 in the air, is equally unsuitable for general purposes, 

 as the bit does not rest on the bars of the mouth. 



