HOW TO RENDER HORSES OBEDIENT. 289 



competent to do so, which is far from being the case. 

 Our object was to show by what means, within almost 

 every rider's reach, perfect control may be obtained 

 over the horse's head, neck, and hind legs, and this 

 because it is by the aid of these members of its body, 

 especially the last-named ones, that the vicious or in- 

 subordinate horse is enabled to defy its rider. 



Up to the point at which we have now arrived it will 

 have been most advisable to use a snaffle, either alone 

 or in combination with Seeger's running-rein, which 

 enables us, whilst we lift the horse's neck and head by 

 the upward and backward pull on the snaffle-reins, 

 to limit exactly the degree to which this elevation 

 takes place. When the neck, and with it the head, 

 have been got into the desired position which is, we 

 repeat, always that in which the horse trots perfectly 

 "clean" and in "obedience" the next step is to get 

 the head into its proper position with regard to the 

 neck, and this is done by means of the curbed bit. 



What sort of bit should be selected, and how it ought 

 to be put into the horse's mouth, has been already fully 

 explained, and all that will be further necessary is to 

 accustom the horse gradually to this in precisely the 

 way pointed out already for getting it to accept other 

 limitations of its freedom. If all this be done carefully 

 skilfully, above all patiently but resolutely, the result 

 will be a horse moving in complete obedience to the will 

 of the rider, at all degrees of speed, with perfect ease to 

 itself, and without apparent effort on the rider's part ; 

 for the animal will have learned to modify the propelling 

 and bearing action of its hind legs in accordance with 

 the pressure exercised by the rider's legs, whilst the 

 lever-action of the head on the neck produced by a 



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