BIDING AND DRIVING 235 



ing a good seat, good hands, and that knowledge 

 of horse nature which complete the equipment of 

 every expert in the art. I confess that I do not 

 know much about riding schools, nor indeed that 

 I have seen much of them. When I was a boy in 

 Kentucky there were no riding schools there, and 

 I am not at all sure that there have ever been. 

 And yet so competent a judge and careful an ob-i 

 server as Mr. Edward L. Anderson has ex- 

 pressed the opinion that the Kentuckians are the 

 best riders in America. 



If this be so, and I agree with him, it must be 

 that the Kentuckians in educating their horses 

 also educated themselves. This seems reasonable 

 enough, for the Kentucky saddle-horse is the best 

 trained of any saddle animals in America, though 

 the circus tricks of what are called the "high- 

 school horse" are unknown. It used to be com- 

 mon there at the county fairs to have rings for 

 men, and for boys under fifteen, in which they 

 competed with one another as to skill in horse- 

 manship. The competitors put their horses 

 through all the paces and were required by the 

 judges to change horses, so as to see what each 



