or through restiveness or laziness are always trying to escape from the rider's control. With such animals, the man must, from the beginning, assert his superiority with intelligent force. It is not, in such cases, a question of training or education. It is a question of taming, yet without creating fear by excessive punishment. The rider must be positive, strict, and severe; but always reasonable and calm.
The result of burying the spurs in the horse's flanks and holding them there is commonly to inhibit the action of the great pectoralis muscles, and thus to prevent the forward propulsion of the body, while at the same time punishing the creature for an act of restiveness. The horse, therefore, finding himself unable to use his members in rebellion, cannot but feel the rider's mastership. But if the horse does not already understand the effect of legs and spurs, surprise may throw him into disorder. Moreover, the sharpness of the spurs, the strength and temperament and training of the horse, and its native stubbornness, all need to be considered by the rider before he buries his spurs in its flanks.
A rider is said to "tickle with the spurs" when he uses these instruments inopportunely and without reason. Certain riders like to exhibit an ill-founded pretense of knowing how to ride, and render their mounts impatient or frantic by continued tickling. Others, who have no accuracy of seat, let their legs
