THE BARB AND THE BRIDLE. 83 



horse, too, is moving with his fore and hind feet in two distinctly- 

 different lines, which renders it far from easy, without considerable 

 practice, to sit fair and square in the saddle. Close attention and 

 quiet correction, however, will obviate all this. 



Many people, I am aware, assert that riding with such precision 

 is unnecessary to a lady. From this opinion I beg leave to dissent 

 in toto, my idea being that a course of equitation for a lady means 

 teaching her everything (less the lessons of the " Haute Ecole ") 

 connected with the subject, and that whether she chooses hereafter to 

 practise the "bending lesson," "half passage," and change at a 

 ■ canter or not, a thorough knowledge of them will give her a facility 

 of riding unattainable by any other means, and make her also 

 thoroughly an fait to the reason for everything she does in order to 

 .control the animal under her. 



Again, I can see no possible reason why the nicest precision should 

 be considered unnecessary in a lady's riding any more than it is in 

 music ; and, to try back on my old simile, I submit that as the same 

 scale is written for a Thalberg as for the fair daughter of the house 

 who performs on the pianoforte for the post prandial amusement 

 ■of paterfamilias, and inasmuch as the mode in which the music 

 is performed is dependent in a great measure upon precision and 

 practice, so in riding it is necessary to make a young lady acquainted 

 with the principles of equitation in their minutest details, and 

 xjarefuUy to watch that she executes them with the most rigid 

 exactness. 



To return to the half passage. On arriving at the boards the 

 lady should halt her horse for a moment and make much of him, 

 then rein him back, and again walk him round the school to the left. 

 The half passage should then be done to that hand, reversing the 

 aids, and using the whip instead of the left leg. This will bring the 

 horse again upon the right rein. He should now be well put up to 

 his work, and pressed smartly off at a very collected canter. The 

 instructor should be most careful that the proper cadence in pace is 

 arrived at before he gives the word, and should caution the pupil 

 also that when she arrives at the boards she should bring her horse 

 -to the walk. 



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