86 Horse and Man. 



becomes, or in other words that the increase 

 of his action tends to diminish his suppleness. 

 The pull which would throw him on his 

 haunches at a walk will merely shorten his 

 stroke at a full trot, and will scarcely be felt 

 at a gallop. This is a difficulty which has 

 never yet been overcome. None of the esta- 

 blished schools of horsemanship have been 

 able to invent a method of educating the 

 horse, which shall put him completely under 

 the command of his rider without confining 

 or impairing the full exercise of his natural 

 powers. 



The English horseman, with characteristic 

 though perhaps unconscious good sense, sticks 

 to the preferable and wholly abandons the in- 

 ferior alternative. He has no regular method 

 of suppling his horse at all. Whatever light- 

 ness in hand an English horse may possess is 

 in most cases entirely the result of natural 

 good shape and good temper, assisted by ha- 

 bitual good riding. The consequence is that 

 an English horse, though usually safe and 

 often pleasant to ride, is very seldom so 

 educated as completely to satisfy a scientific 

 horseman, but that this deficiency is compen- 



