PREFACE
and is divided into military, racing, steeple-chasing, polo, and the promenade. Only the last of these is treated in this work.
Riding is one of the most wholesome of recreations, both for mind and body. It does, however, necessitate a certain special and natural aptitude. Anybody, reasonably well conformed morally and physically, can practice the ordinary equitation as a health-giving exercise, easy to acquire. But riding practiced as an art or as a science offers serious and multiplied difficulties, in the solution of which by the student is found all the mental pleasure of the avocation.
The two greatest masters of the art are Baucher and Fillis. With them, in the light of their principles, riding has become truly an art, because these masters have been satisfied to set forth their practices, without giving the reason, the wherefore, of the acts which they dictate. For example, the two effects of the rider's hand upon the lower jaw of the horse impel the animal to the right or to the left. The pressure of the rider's legs upon the horse's flanks gives two more sensations. Here, then, are four signs, by means of which the rider communicates with his mount and thereby controls its entire mechanism. These sensations, caused in a living animal, certainly have for it a meaning: they oblige certain parts to act. The rider closes his leg upon the horse's right flank, and the horse turns to the right. But what is the mechanical reason?
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