UNLEARNING ACQUIRED HABITS. 343 



ridden, whether it may have been twenty times or two hundred, 

 he must have ridden somehow / and though a horseman might 

 very properly consider this as riding nohow, it will depend upon 

 the turn of the rider's mind hoAV far it may or may not be found 

 difficult to convince him it was so. But, as I have said, he must 

 have ridden somehow, and that with him has become a habit ; 

 therefore, supposing he is diffident enough to be convinced his 

 habits have been bad ones, he has to forget, or at least to fore- 

 go, those while he learns proper ones, the former probably being 

 by far the most difficult task. 



With tlie third, who has ridden a great deal, but ridden bad- 

 ly, I wish to have nothing to do ; as it is probable, if not cer- 

 tain, that he will be as opinionated as ignorant, and as imable 

 as unwilling to appreciate or to profit by instruction. At all 

 eveuts, no credit is to be gained by such a pupil, and it is all 

 but hopeless to attempt to make him into a horseman." — Harry 

 Hieover's Pract. Horsemanship. 



In addition to this, I have only to state, that nothing which 

 I have said above, in regard to the use of the martingale, is to 

 be held as applying either to the riding of race horses, or to the 

 riding or driving of fast-trotting horses. 



To both these ends the use of the martingale is indispensa- 

 ble ; as, above all things, the heads of the animals must be kept 

 steady and perfectly inflexible at a hard unyielding pull. The 

 absence of a good mouth, or of a pleasant and handsome style 

 of going is necessary to neither animal, and, in the trotter, 

 the former would be a vice rather than a virtue, as the possession 

 of a fine, delicate, light hand would be a disqualification, rather 

 than an advantage, to the rider or driver of such animals. 



For race-riders, or riders and drivers of match-trotters, I give 

 no directions — the professionals are better able to instruct me, 

 than I to teach them ; and amateurs in the former art can hardly 

 ever expect to succeed ; while, in the latter branch of equestrian- 

 ism, they can only acquire proficiency by practice and study on 

 the course and on the road, and then, only at the disadvantage and 

 penalty of unfitting themselves for any other sort of riding or 

 driving, of acquiring a bad and ungainly seat, and of losing, if 

 they ever possessed it, tlie lightnehS, sensibility, and delicacy of 

 touch, which constitute what is known to horsemen as a good hand. 



