134 STABLE MANUAL AND HORSE DOCTOR 



horse's mouth as respects the elevating or lowering^ of the 

 head. All they can do is to use such force in pulling the 

 reins that the horse cannot advance. Probably the rider 

 will take the hint, and moderate his pull at the reins. 



" Hands " may be considered the refinement of horseman- 

 ship, without which no man has any pretensions to the 

 character of a horseman ; he may ride boldly, and sit fast. 

 This does not make him a horseman. "The difference 

 between riders," says " Harry Hieover," is — " the one sits on 

 the back of a horse, crossing a country in such form and 

 style as the animal likes ; the other causes the horse to do 

 the same thing, but in a proper manner." 



Good " hands" are to a man of fortune worth a diadem ; 

 in virtue of them, he is carried as no man wanting them can 

 be. It may be said his money could purchase horses that 

 want no hands to make them do their business handsomely. 

 He might ; but if they wanted no hands to make them go in 

 such manner, still less do they want bad ones to thwart them 

 when they do. 



They are invaluable to the poorer man. They enable him 

 to purchase horses hitherto thought little of from a bad style 

 of carriage, and raise the price of the same horse, while in 

 his possession, from, perhaps, eighty to a hundred and fifty. 



Finally, "hands" are of the utmost importance to the horse 

 himself, particularly in hunting ; wanting them beats many 

 a good horse before his time. Permitting a horse, in techni- 

 cal phrase, to "make a spread eagle of himself," and go 

 sprawling along over a deep fallow, " sows him up " at once. 

 It is quite a fallacious idea to suppose that a horse knows 

 the easiest way of going himself. He, perhaps, would do 

 so in a state of nature ; but nature is not crossing a hundred- 

 acre holding pasture, with twelve (or more) stone weight on 

 his back. 



CHAPTER IX 



LADIES' HORSEMANSHIP— CHOOSING A LADTS 



HORSE 



Albeit we do not expect lady-readers to con the pages of 

 books such as this, yet do we esteem it a serious omission 

 that the art of riding, as practised by lady-proficients, 



