218 HANDS AND LEGS (AIDS). 



whip is such a critical one, that it is essential a well practised 

 method should be adopted, so that the jockey may run no 

 chance of making a fatal muddle with the reins. Such mis- 

 takes, which would be hardly excusable in an amateur, are not 

 unfrequently committed by professionals who fancy them- 

 selves not a little. We often see jockeys " let go the reins " 

 the moment they use the whip. It strikes me, that the reason 

 they fall into this unpardonable error, is that they do not slide 

 the bridle hand forward to shorten the reins before the whip 

 hand quits them, as ought to be done. When there is little 

 time to act and none to think, the mere knowledge of the 



Fig. 194. Shortening the reins before using the whip with 

 the left hand. 



proper method of doing a thing cannot be utilised. An 

 action, however, which has been sufficiently often repeated to 

 have become automatic, will be instinctively performed with- 

 out the necessity of reflection, on the senses receiving the 

 required stimulus. 



When the whip lias to be changed from one hand into 

 another hand, say, from the right into the left the former 

 should shorten the reins (Fig. 194) in the manner before 

 described for the left hand ; the left hand should now quit 

 the reins, seize the whip (Fig. 195), and draw it through the 

 right hand. 



The stick that is specially dedicated to riding, particularly in 



