-so— 



in controlling the horse is really wonderful, and the new formn 

 of powerful bridles given in this work enable the most timid 

 rider to secure the mastery of the most powerful animal. The 

 one described above is excellent, and can never fail to give satis- 

 faction when it is used as directed. 



There is no exercise so invigorating and scarcely any so de- 

 lightful as the manly one of riding the horse yet three-quarters 

 of the pleasure of equestrianism depends on the early training 

 of the horse for this delightful exercise. The rider who feels 

 that he has beneath him an animal obedient to his slightest wish 

 and which responds to a touch of the heel or the lightest pressure 

 of the bit, moving to the lifting or the falling of the bridle, such 

 a rider feels almost as though the horse on which he sits forms 

 a portion of himself, and courses onward with a delightful sense 

 of power and freedom. Nearly all of this excellence in a riding- 

 horse depends on the way in which he has been educated while 

 young. Faults then acquired may be corrected, it is true, in later 

 years, yet is far more desirable that they should never have been 

 formed, but in place thereof, the qualities secured which form 

 the excellence of a horse. 



I throw out these suggestions at this point, for I am now deal- 

 ing with the early education of the colt ; later in the book I 

 shall have to speak more of faults to be corrected, and it is my 

 wish to impress on my reader the great importance of the kind 

 of education which the colt receives at his hands. 



To Educate a Horse that Kicks or Paws in the 



StaU. 



First make the Bonaparte bridle, as before directed; carry 

 the cord through a surcingle, attached around the body, back to 

 a ring in front of the hind-leg, to which are attached two straps, 

 one above and one below the gambol joint of the leg he has the 

 habit of kicking with ; thus, when he kicks, he is punished in 

 the act, and soon gives up the habit. Pavnng — •Continue the 

 cord forward to a ring attached to two small straps above and 

 below the knee-joint, as seen on engraving, observing, as above 



