are called, but few chosen to the proper management of this delicate and powerful aid.
To explain the effects of the legs and the causes of these, and to deduce from such general principles the correct manner of using these effects in practice, is the most complicated subject in all equestrian science.
In ancient times, before the invention of the bridle, the legs provided the only means of controlling the horse. Later came spurs. All the masters of equestrian art, from Xenophon to James Fillis inclusive, have laid down the principle that the effect of the contact of the legs is to impel the body forward in whatever direction is indicated by the reins.
This is, nevertheless, only partly true. When the legs are pressed against the flanks of an uneducated animal, their first effect is merely to tickle the panniculus carnosus muscle, which envelops the body from chest to haunch. But although this muscle does adhere to certain of the locomotor muscles, its action is entirely independent of the whole locomotor system. When, therefore, the horse feels the touch of a foreign object, it merely uses the panniculus carnosus to shake the skin, whether that foreign body be legs, spurs, or flies. It is, consequently, only as the result of education that the horse learns to support unmoved the rider's legs and spurs.
But below the panniculus carnosus, from thorax
