Seats. 85 



one or both fore legs, the rider loses all his support at 

 once, the stirrup acting only as a pivot round which, 

 by means of his stitY leg, his whole body is made, by 

 the impulse received from the hind legs, to rotate and 

 perform the catapult experiment. And if a horse sud- 

 denly swerves, turns on his haunches, or comes to a 

 dead halt at a jump, the rider is most likely, through 

 the same agency, to continue the original line of move- 

 ment, while the horse adopts a new one, or " reposes." 

 Thirdly, this method of riding tends very forcibly to 

 making the horse convert the rider's hand into a fifth 

 leg for itself, the pull of the head on the rein coming at 

 an acute angle to the push or tread of the leg in the 

 stirrup ; and this, when carried to excess, degenerates 

 into pure rein-and-stir7'up riding vjitJiout any seat^ 

 especially with horses that carry their heads low. It 

 is, however, just precisely with a hard-pulling horse 

 that a curbed bit would be so desirable, and 'with this 

 scat it is a matter of impossibility to use one. The rule 

 for the jockey we have seen is, never, in standing in 

 his stirrups, to depend for seat to any extent on his reins. 

 Why this should be neglected in hunting is not easy to 

 understand. The Cossacks and Circassians, who all 

 ride with a snaffle, and do wonderful things with it, sit 

 perfectly independent of the rein ; any one can make 

 his horse equally light in the hand with a snaffle as 

 theirs are, by making his seat as independent of the 

 reins and stirrups, or use a curbed bit in hunting if he 

 pleases. It is the close, steady seat that makes the 

 hand light and the horse's mouth soft ; and therefore it 

 is much more valuable in teaching to make the young 

 riders dispense altogether zuith the rei?is than zvith the 

 stirrups^ and may be done sooner. 



Apropos of rising in the stirrups — " either to a^■oid a 

 kick, or in jumping a large fence, the rider, by merely 

 rising in his stirrups, at once raises or abstracts from 



