114 ORDINARY RIDING. 



and the more energetic the subsequent defence. If the horse 

 is soft, he will lean against the spur ; but if he is impetuous, 

 he will immediately make a most violent defence, and the 

 breaking will have failed in every way. Some animals will 

 become restive, others will become maddened at the mere 

 approach of the leg, and the breaker, instead of having taught 

 anything, will have rendered education impossible. 



It is always thus in breaking, the great difficulty being to 

 make the horse understand what we want him to do. As we 

 can appeal only to his memory,* the means which we employ 

 with him should be simple, and should be invariably the 

 same. 



In riding, the horse ought to be taught to understand that 

 the spur is simply an " aid," and that it becomes a punish- 

 ment only when he plays up.t 



Many persons who have only a superficial knowledge of 

 equitation imagine that, instead of touching the horse behind 

 the girths with the spur, it is more rational to keep the knee 

 tightly pressed against the flap of the saddle, and by drawing 

 back the heel to spur the horse on the side. Nothing can be 

 more faulty than this method, by which the spur slides along 

 a large extent of the side. By it we succeed only in tickling 

 the animal and provoking him to defend himself, and we 

 are unable to spur him with sufficient power to drive him 

 forward and to paralyse his defence. The further back the 



* For this reason, I have already said that in the same lesson we must care- 

 fully avoid requiring the horse to do two or more things which might confuse 

 him. As his comprehension is very slow, we ought to guard against perplexing 

 him. 



t It often happens that the horse throws himself on the spur, sometimes to one 

 side and sometimes to the other. In this case we ought to efifectively correct 

 him with the spur, for which object I place him in the middle of the school, and 

 drive my heel and spur into his rebellious side, so as to make him bring it round. 

 When he has thus made two or three pirouettes, I stop and begin again the work 

 I left off. If he again resists, I recommence the work, until he has thoroughly 

 given in. 



Digitized by Microsoft® 



