•HANDS' AND OTHER MATTERS 115 



This axiom, good enough in itself, has led to a 

 great deal of unnecessary cruelty and misconcep- 

 tion. We must, of course, be master, but also a 

 great deal of tact is necessary. If a horse refuses 

 to turn round to the right, let us say, then turn 

 him round to the left. It doesn't matter, as long 

 as you get him round. We can remember the 

 incident, and cure him of it at our leisure afterwards. 



If he won't jump a certain fence, don't persist 

 in putting him at it, with whip and spur. Take 

 him away, and rig up that kind of fence at home, 

 and teach him to jump it, kindly and quietly. 

 That is all. We get the horse to do what we want, 

 in time. Tact is just as important in the equine 

 as in the social world. Where discipline is slackest, 

 punishment prevails. The good leader of men sees 

 that his orders are carried out, but he controls 

 by studying human frailties, and pardoning delin- 

 quencies. So with the good horsemaster. The use 

 of the whip should be of so rare an occurrence as 

 to be almost negligible. I would like to say that 

 it should never be used, but I admit that here and 

 there we do, very occasionally, come across in- 

 stances where it is necessary. These occur w^hen 

 we have to overcome faults due to bad treatment 

 or bad riding in the past. We certainly should 

 never require a whip for any horse we had broken 

 ourselves.^ 



And yet how often we see the whip used in 



1 Here, reference is only made to punishment. The whip 

 used to tap a horse on the shoulder, etc., is, of course, extremely 

 useful. 



