restive horse.]

There is a common error, both in theory and practice, with regard to the
restive horse. He is very apt to rear sideways against the nearest wall
or paling. It is the common error to suppose that he does so with the
view of rubbing his rider off. Do not give him credit for intellect
sufficient to generate such a scheme. It is that when there, the common
error is to pull his head _from_ the wall. This brings the rider's knee
in contact with the wall, consequently all farther chastisement ceases;
for were the rider to make his horse plunge, his knee would be crushed
against the wall. The horse, finding this, probably thinks that it is
the very thing desired, and remains there; at least he will always fly
to a wall for shelter. Instead of _from_ the wall, pull his head towards
it, so as to place his eye, instead of your knee, against it; continue
to use the spur, and the horse will never go near a wall again.

[Sidenote: Truth may be paradoxical.]

To pull a horse _from_ what he shies at, and _towards_ the wall he rubs
you against, are very paradoxical doctrines. But, ~ho mythos deloi~, the
fable shows, that truth _may_ be paradoxical--that we _can_ blow hot and
blow cold with the same breath; and it was only the brutal wild man of
the woods who drove the civilised man from his den, for performing the
feat.

CHAPTER IV.

MECHANICAL AID OF THE RIDER.

The rider cannot raise the falling horse.--Harm is done by the
attempt.--The bearing rein.--Mechanical assistance of the jockey to
his horse.--Standing on the stirrups.--Difference between the gallop
and the leap.--Steeple-chases and hurdle-races unfair on the
horse.--The rider should not attempt to lift his horse at a fence.

[Sidenote: The rider cannot raise the falling horse.]

There is no more common error than to believe that the rider can hold
his horse up when he is falling. How often do we hear a man assert that
his horse would have been down with him forty times if he had not held
him up; that he has taken his horse up between his hands and legs and
lifted him over a fence; or that he has recovered his horse on the other
side!

These are vulgar errors, and mechanical impossibilities. Could ten men,
with hand-spikes, lift the weight of a horse? Probably. Attach the
weight to the thin rein of a lady's bridle. Could a lady lift it with
the left hand? I think not; though it is commonly supposed that she
could. A pull from a c