hundred and forty times, half at the right hand, half at the left. If, then, the rider directs the animal at each turn, he obtains valuable practice in guiding his mount, and so learns to perform the act intuitively and without effort. Otherwise, not only does the rider miss the opportunity, but, in addition, the horse, not knowing the difference between being straight and being crooked, gets the habit of crossing its legs, and when asked to go forward and straight, carries its rider to the center of the area.
CHANGE OF DIRECTION
The ancient and the mediæval equitation had it that the turn to the right is to be made by means of the right rein of snaffle or bit and the left leg. Baucher agrees with this. According to him, the right rein flexes the neck to the right. The left leg prevents the haunches from swinging toward the left, while the right leg sends the rear limbs along the arc of a circle of greater or smaller radius. Fillis, though more practical than Baucher, grants that Baucher's opinion has been generally accepted.
But to turn to the right by means of right leg and right rein involves the principle of the lateral equitation, with all its practical errors, a principle which cannot be accepted by the scientific equitation. It is not merely the horse's shoulders which turn; it is the entire horse. The horse is first straight and upon the rider's hand. Then the rider gives the
