INTKODUCTION. 9 



In like manner, of riders — ^if lie can ponnd his beast along, 

 getting tlie best possible time out of liim, laying himself back in 

 his stirrups, and hanging on by the reins, steadied by the eternal 

 running martingale, and bearing with a dead pull on the snaffle 

 bit, the horseman esteems himself, and is esteemed by his con- 

 federates and admirers, perfect in the art of equitation. 



Yet, put him on a neatly broken horse, with a spirit that will 

 fire as quickly as gunpowder to the flash, with a mouth of 

 velvet, obedient to the weight of a feather — put him on such a 

 horse, with a sharp curb, and no martingale or cavesson where- 

 by to hang on, and ten to one his horse wnll jump from under 

 him at the first capriole or soubresault ; at all events, he will 

 sit him much as the miller's meal-bag sits on the mill-jade. 



In a word, I mean that out of a thousand riders in ITorth 

 America, there are not five whose seat on the horse is so inde- 

 pendent of their hold on the bridle, that they can sit their horse 

 with their hands akimbo, and the bridle-rein in their teeth ; 

 and if the seat be not so independent of the hand, the hand can- 

 not be independent of the seat. 



In other words, if the rider, more or less, rectifies and retains 

 his seat on the horse's back by his pull on the horse's mouth, 

 the horse's motions, which are and must be regulated by his 

 mouth, will be subject to, and guided by, the rider's seat; not, 

 as they ought to be, by the rider's hand. 



ISTo man can be a fine rider who has not a fine hand — no 

 man can have a fine hand, whose seat is not entirely independ- 

 ent of his hand ; so that the latter can play like a steel spring, 

 giving and returning equally, in whatever position of the horse's 

 or rider's body. 



Consequently, no rider, however excellent in any one style 

 of riding, can be called a good or finished rider. To be a per- 

 fect rider, one must have ridden, and be able, more or less, to 

 ride in every conceivable style of legitimate riding — I do not 



