46 HAND-BOOK FOR HORSEWOMEN. 



to avoid useless repetition, but they should be fre- 

 quently reversed ; and care must always be taken to 

 avoid over-fatigue. 



When the teacher is fully satisfied that his pupil 

 has advanced far enough to profit by it, he may be- 

 gin to teach her to rise at the trot ; but he must not 

 be in too great a hurry to reach this point, and he 

 must make her understand that to rise is the result 

 of a good seat, and that a good seat does not result 

 from rising. 



For the last fifteen years I have looked in vain, in 

 all the treatises on riding, for the reason of that rising 

 to the action of the horse known as the ** English 

 trot," and yet I have seen it practiced among races 

 ignorant of equestrian science, who ride from child- 

 hood as a means of getting from one place to another. 

 The Arabs, Cossacks, Turks, Mexicans, and Apaches, 

 all employ it, in a fashion more or less precise and 

 rhythmical, rising whether their stirrups are short or 

 long, and even if- they have none. It is certain that 

 this way of neutralizing the reaction spares and helps 

 the horse ; and it was calculated, at the meeting of 

 the "Equestrian Committee" at Paris, in 1872, that 

 each time a rider rises he relieves the horse's back 

 of one third of the weight which must rest on it per- 

 manently if he sits fast ; and since that time rising 

 at the trot has been practiced in all the cavalry of 

 Europe. 



After the siege of Paris, in 187 1, 1 was obliged to 

 undertake the training of the horses of my regiment, 



