222 AGILITY. 



the best place and the safest company. All our best riding boys 

 would have been killed early if they had not acquired that power ; 

 but they soon grew almost as confident of their power to fall off 

 safely, when the horse falls or turns a somersault, as in their 

 power to stay on as long as he keeps his legs. Accidents that 

 would be fatal to men with less experience are treated by 

 such riders with the ^same contempt as a cool, collected, agile, 

 Spanish matador treats the vain efforts of a bull to impale him. 

 Girls must not risk or recklessly court falls. Their dress and 

 their saddles make it impossible that they can meet them with 

 the same immunity and contempt. 



524. — After the tumbling age has arrived the quiet old 

 pony will be despised, and a frequent change of horses will best 

 complete the boy's or girl's education as an equestrian. No two 

 horses require the same treatment, and one of the most 

 important lessons is to learn how to see at a glance whether 

 you have to deal with a nervous flyaway, some illused over free 

 victim, a willing useful drudge, a vicious spitfire, or an unexcitable 

 slug. The slugs will require some severity, and an occasional 

 touch with a spur that would spoil a nervous horse for a 

 month. The illused horses will require much time to recover 

 confidence and a great deal of patient forbearance. The nervous 

 horses should be handled with constant gentleness, and get food 

 as bulky, and succulent as the nature of their work will admit. 

 The spitfires should get constant hard work, and as little corn as 

 will keep them fit for it. For vicious horses see vices and bad habits 

 (444 to 504). 



525. — The firmest seated riders we have ever met with, as a 

 •class, are the stockmen of Australia. Their horses when yarding 

 -cattle or heading a fugitive bullock, gallop like race horses, and 

 turn of their own accord, as short and as suddenly as a sheep 

 •dog. We have seen three of these horses put fifteen hundred 

 wild fat bullocks into a yard, with the reins loose on their necks, 

 «,nd untouched the whole time. They watched and chased each 

 fugitive like a sheep dog chases a stray sheep, the stockmen 

 merely sitting on their backs and udng their twenty feet stock 

 ■whips. The sudden drop, stop, and turn of one of these horses 



