160 PEECEPT AND PRACTICE. 



from practice it was safer, and saved himself the strong 

 exertion which clearing the whole involves. But a 

 horse properly taught and practised knows perfectly 

 well, by the way he is ridden at a fence, whether he 

 may use his own instinct as to the mode of taking it, 

 or whether he is to be guided by the judgment and 

 will of his rider. If ridden a fair moderate pace at 

 it, he will (for in such case he is able to do it) either 

 go in and out, or take it in his stride. If he is ridden 

 hard at it, and feels the knees of his rider press his 

 sides, the pace will, perhaps, prevent his doing it 

 at twice ; for the impetus would probably prevent his 

 temporary landing on the bank between to enable 

 him to make, as it were, a second jump. Now, my 

 horse in the waggon-jumping feat took both fences 

 in his swing. He had two very cogent reasons for 

 doing so : in the first place, he was ridden at it at a 

 pace he could not have stopped had he wished to have 

 done so ; in the next, he of course saw no place 

 to make an intermediate landing-place of, unless he 

 had fixed on the sacks in the waggon for that par- 

 pose ; and again, a stroke of the whip and my halloo 



