Page:Equitation.djvu/409

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extends it forward, while by carrying the head low, it neutralizes the effects of the bridle. The hind legs are not together, but one of them is too much under the body while the other is extended too far to the rear and does not support its share of the weight. Commonly, the horse stops of its own will, and refuses to advance or to change its position at the ordinary effects. The rider feels as if he were mounted upon an unsteady wooden horse.

Sometimes this condition of fear or stupor is the result of defective eyesight, and is brought about by the sensation of some object the effect of which has spread from the brain to the entire body. The sound of a locomotive or of an automobile sometimes, though not often, has a like effect. In the first instance, the correction is through the treatment of the horse's eyes by a veterinary. In the second, the procedure is to accustom the horse to the noise and to build up its confidence in its rider.

But where the state is the result of an evil will and the desire to refuse obedience, the corrective is, without loss of time, to separate the reins into the two hands, and with right hand and right leg, or vice versa, force the horse to turn round and round in a very small circle.

The horse, thereupon, from fear of falling, will move its legs and relax all its body. After this treatment, it will remember the result of its rebellion and will very seldom repeat the offense.