o 



08 Among Men and Horses. 



the intelligence of the animals, and not to their remembrance 

 of the prick of the spur, and the touches of the whip. 



To obtain the desired precision in school work it is 

 necessary, as previously stated, that the horse should resign 

 the initiative absolutely to his rider, who, consequently, has 

 to continue the application of certain aids, or change them 

 for others as may be required. For instance, if the horse be 

 cantering forward with the off fore leading, and the rider 

 turns him to the left without altering the aids, the animal 

 will continue to lead with the off fore, instead of ' changing ' 

 to the near fore. Or if he met in his onward course a dan- 

 gerous inequality in the ground, he would, instead of avoid- 

 ing it by going off to one side or the other, go into or on top 

 of it with the chance of injuring himself or his rider, unless, 

 indeed, his fear of an accident was greater than his sense of 

 discipline. It is evident that a horse which would depend 

 solely on his master for guidance, would in time lose to a 

 great extent its instinct of self-preservation when being 

 ridden, and would consequently be an unsafe ' conveyance ' 

 over bad ground, or across a ' country.' In fact, the less de- 

 veloped a horse's natural ' cleverness ' is, other things being 

 equal, the better school horse he will prove. Again I say 

 that school riding is worthy of practice only as a means and 

 not as an end. Owing to the mechanical condition of mind 

 into which school horses are brought by their training, they 

 are bad for ordinary outdoor work. In fact, they are rarely 

 used outside the manege, especially as hacking, hunting, and 

 similar kinds of work tend to unfit them for the business in 

 the school. Fillis told me that Baucher, with whom he had 

 been an assistant for three years, never to his knowledge 

 rode in any other place than a manege or circus. On one 

 occasion, so Fillis related to me when I met him in Germany, 

 a nobleman of high rank came into the manege belonging to 

 Baucher, who at that moment was riding a beautifully 

 trained horse, on which he performed a number of elaborate 

 evolutions for the benefit of his distinguished visitor. While 



