302 KESTIVENESS : ITS PREVENTION AND CURE. 



diminish the pressure alternately, and always in unison 

 with the action of his own heels or spurs ; and this 

 latter should be screw-like not stabbing or digging at 

 the horse's side, which involves a loosening of the hold, 

 and accustoms a horse to wince away or flee the spur, 

 instead of yielding obedience to the pressure of the calf. 

 This is what the Germans call "wickeln" that is to 

 say, winding or rolling-up a horse and, if properly 

 done, is very efficacious for overcoming restiveness 

 generally ; if employed in the nick of time, it will even 

 prevent rearing. 



On the whole, it is evident that a key to the best 

 methods of mastering the horse's powers, and utilising 

 them fairly, whether merely for handling young ones, 

 or for the prevention and cure of restiveness, is to be 

 found only in a thorough knowledge of the mechanism 

 of that animal's movements. This we have endeavoured 

 to explain in Chapter I., Part I., of this book ; and those 

 who will take the pains to compare what is said there 

 with what they see restive horses do, will be thereby 

 enabled to discover for themselves more than we can 

 pretend to teach them. 



We would also venture to recommend the chapter 

 on " Seats " to the attention of rational riders and 

 trainers, but especially of those who have to deal with 

 restive horses. In that chapter we could do little more 

 than hint at general principles so far as they are ap- 

 plicable to various kinds of riding ; here we can lay 

 down positive rules for the seat, and give reasons why 

 it should be so and not otherwise. 



We have seen how a horse that meditates resistance 

 gets its legs under its body, coiling itself up, as it were, 

 round one fixed point, the fourteenth vertebra. The 



