become
as stiff as a piece of wood. Is it to be supposed that the best suppled
manege horse is more supple than the colt at the foot of his dam? Can
any one who has watched his pranks think so? How often have I been told
by a rider to observe how supple his horse's neck had become! That he
could now get his horse's head round to his knee, whereas he could not
at first accomplish more than to see his horse's eye. If the same horse,
loose, wished to scratch his shoulder or his ribs, would he not
forthwith do it with his teeth?

When a cabriolet or cart is turned in a narrow street or road, the horse
is forced to make half a pirouette, without any questions being asked as
to his capabilities or suppleness; and the rein being pulled strongest
on one side, the whip applied on the other, the shafts to prevent his
turning short, and with evident reason why he cannot go a-head, he sees
what is required, and does it without difficulty; but the same horse
will not do the same mounted, in the middle of a grass-field, with
nothing but his rider's _aids_ to bias him, or to indicate what is
required of him. Why? either because he can't understand your _aids_, or
you can't enforce obedience to them: these will be the reasons, not his
want of suppleness.

The great thing in horsemanship is to get your horse to be of your
party--not only to obey, but to obey willingly. For this reason a young
horse cannot be begun with too early, and his lessons cannot be too
gradually progressive. The great use of longeing is, not that it supples
your horse--it is a farce to suppose that--but that, next to leading, it
is the easiest act of obedience which you can exact from him. In this
way it is an admirable lesson.

[Sidenote: The leaping-bar.]

Placing the colt between the pillars of the stall is admirable as a
lesson of submission and obedience; by degrees he may be even cleaned
there. The brush acts as the urging indication; the reins inform him
that he is not to advance; the result is that he collects himself to
the bit. Here, then, the common theory would make him to be taken up and
collected, not between the hands and legs, not "dans la main et dans les
talons," but dans the sides of the stall and dans the horse brush. It is
precisely the same as putting the horse between the pillars in a manege,
which is an admirable explanatory practice to a horse. With the whip in
skilful hands, the sides of the stall give infinite advantage over the
p