REARING, 337 



with the long reins. It is often beneficial, supposing, of 

 course that the ground is soft, to provoke the rearer to rear 

 when reining him back with the long reins, the outward 

 one being on the driving pad (see Fig. 91), and then try 

 to pull him over in order to practically demonstrate to him 

 the unpleasantness of such a reversal, so that he may 

 abstain for the future from placing himself in any such 

 position. As a further means of obtaining good behaviour, 

 I would take, with all rearers, this opportunity of having 

 them on the ground, to tie them head and tail and keep 

 them down, as I have described on page 332, until any 

 remaining " nonsense " which might have been lurking in 

 their minds had been removed. Since I adopted the 

 method, which I copied from the French ecuyers, of 

 teaching rearers the turn on the forehand {pirouette 

 renversee) with the whip, I have had as a rule very little 

 difficulty in making even the worst rearers stop their pranks 

 and go in any direction in which I wished to ride them, 

 after giving them a lesson of this kind for, say, a quarter 

 of an hour. After succeeding perfectly in this manner, 

 it would not be safe to trust such a horse to the guidance 

 of a rider who did not know how to manage him before 

 giving the pupil several (say, a dozen) similar lessons in 

 order to confirm the habit of obedience. To insure this 

 object, I would advise that a further effect should be made 

 on the mind of the animal by making him lie down (see 

 page 161), and, if necessary, by keeping him on the ground 

 with his head pulled round (see page 165). Although I 

 advise reining-back with the long reins on foot as a means 

 of reforming the rearer, I do not think that, in such cases, 



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