Inti'oductojy Chapter. 19 



degree of school-training. Others who were more judi- 

 cious found it impossible to reconcile the well-known 

 docility of the English breed with the fractiousness 

 and intractability of these exported specimens, and 

 came to the very sound conclusion that the fault lay, 

 not in the breed, but in the previous injudicious hand- 

 ling of these individuals. Baucher, the French riding- 

 master, founded his great reputation — which, by the 

 way, has been much exaggerated — on his successful 

 conversion of the celebrated Partisan — an English horse 

 that was sold for a song, because nobody could manage 

 him — into a first-rate and most docile school-horse. 

 Some of the Germans, however, decided the question 

 in a still more positive manner by buying young high- 

 bred horses in England that had never been backed ; 

 and Seeger, Von Oeynhausen and other first-rate 

 authorities now all state that English horses are just 

 as capable of high training as all others, and more so 

 than the Arabians, who have a very peculiar trot. 



It is incontestable that the English, as a nation, pos- 

 sess in a high degree the physical and moral qualifica- 

 tions that go to make good riders. Where, then, can 

 the fault lie? Evidently in something connected with 

 the mechanism employed in enabling the horse to carry 

 its rider, and the rider to maintain his seat and preserve 

 the mastery over his bearer ; in other words, something 

 -peculiar in saddles and seats^ bits and bitting. 



It will perhaps seem to many persons impossible, or 

 at least improbable, that mere saddles and bridles, or 

 the manner in which they are adjusted to the horse's 

 body, can produce such very material results as those 

 suggested here. Well, it does seem strange ; but let 

 us listen, before passing judgment on the case, to some 

 documentary evidence bearing upon it. On the 20th 

 May, 1859, the French cavalry had in Piedmont 900S 

 effective horses, increased subsequently by the arrival 



