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MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR HORSE

 

There are only three things necessary if you are to learn to comprehend what your horse is trying to say, and make him comprehend what you want him to do: patience, understanding and unlimited time. You will need patience to spend endless hours watching and memorising the signs and sounds he uses in communicating with you and with other horses; understanding to appreciate that a horse does not think or respond as a human being does; and unlimited time to complete your task, because a task it is, one that has taken us twenty years to complete. Understanding is the most important requirement to begin with. If you look upon your horse as another human being, you will never be able to understand him and make yourself clearly understood by him. You have only to watch a bunch of wild horses in the field together to see that their reactions and behaviour are completely alien to those of the human being. You may see one horse approach another and the first horse turn on him and attack him with his teeth and feet. But you would make a mistake if you concluded that they were enemies. Horses, no matter how friendly, will often kick and bite each other, as human beings will argue with each other, but it is always an instantaneous reaction and it is over in a minute or two. A horse is not human and the greatest barrier to the understanding of any animal is anthro­pomorphism, that is to say, attributing human personality and behaviour to animals.

It must also be remembered that no animal will react to exactly the same stimuli as another animal. Bearing this in mind, if you wish to understand what your horse is saying, it is probably best to begin by trying to make some sem­blance of order out of the signs and sounds he uses that you understand already – you will be surprised at how many signs and sounds you do know. If you are in close contact with a large number of horses, it is best to begin by con­centrating on one horse, the horse that you feel closest to. When you have discovered how much you already under­stand of what he is saying, you will be able to start adding to the list. You will find it a very slow process, but after six months, if you have really put your mind to the subject, you should be able to understand most of what he says. You should have between twenty-five and thirty basic messages.

You can now start trying to understand signs and sounds used by other horses you are in contact with, and to find out how they convey the same basic message. For example, if you are in contact with twenty horses, and you take a basic message such as 'welcome', you will probably find eight to a dozen different variations in the way that it is said, so you will add the variations to your vocabulary.

When you have your list of basic messages (forty-seven in all), you can start extending your vocabulary when speaking to the horse. You will of course use your voice, but it does not matter what words you use since it is the tone of the voice that matters to the animal. Alex Kerr, Bertram Mills' lion tamer, used to describe how when he was training a lion or a tiger, he had to work the animal for a very long time indeed, and to get one animal to per­form one action might take five or six hours. The whole time he would be talking to the animal he was training, and he found the only way he could relieve his own tension was to swear. So he learnt to swear in as many languages as he could. He would use the foulest oaths under the sun in a soft, caressing, gentle tone –he swore at his lions and tigers to stop himslf getting angry with them.



Then when you are using signs, you must remember that your hands and arms cease to be hands and arms, but become neck and head, so that when you stroke the horse it will feel to him that he is being caressed with the head and nose of another horse, and when you slap him it will tingle for him in the same way as a bite from another horse. Other movements you use are very similar to that of a horse: your legs are similar in action to his hind legs, so if for example he kicks at you, it will be exactly the same movement that you use to kick him back.

And if he does kick at you, it is important for you to kick back at him straight away, since if you do not, he will think that he has dominated you by his anger. It is no use what­ever if you wait until you come out of hospital, six weeks later. In a herd, you will notice that if an inferior horse kicks at the boss horse, the boss horse will kick back much harder and much more firmly; but if a boss horse kicks at an inferior horse, the inferior horse will get out of the way. So if when your horse kicks at you, you get out of the way, he will immediately assume that you are inferior to him in the social hierarchy of the herd. Only if you attack him back will he accept that you are the boss.

When you can interpret all the signs and sounds that your horses use, and they can interpret what you are saying to them, you can start using your feelings and instincts to interpret his e.s.p. messages. This is not as revolutionary as it sounds. What you are trying to do is to extend an ability that you are using already, for once you can get that feeling of oneness with your horse, it is only a small step to in­terpreting his moods and feelings.

In the early stages you ought to be able to tell if he is relaxed or excited even before you see him; and the more you handle him, provided that you are thinking on approxi­mately the same wavelength, the more you will understand. The most difficult part of e.s.p., and the danger that has to be guarded against, is the fact that everyone wants to be­lieve he can do it, and that he is indeed getting through to his horse, or whatever animal he is handling. We have found with many people that, while there is a certain amount of e.s.p. response, there is even more imagination. When you really are getting through to a horse, you will know what he is feeling and you will know what he is going to do next, and the certainty of your knowledge will be such that there is no room for doubt whatever – it is impossible to be mistaken. Part of your knowledge is bound to come from using your eyes and ears, and from your knowledge of the horse and the horse's reactions: if a horse puts his ears back and arches his back, you will know that he is going to buck. But when you are getting through to the horse, you will feel the tension increasing and the knots growing in your belly long before there is any visible sign. You will feel his hunger and impatience as you go towards the feed­ing house, even when you cannot see him and long before he knocks his basin and whickers.

One of the ways to extend your extra-sensory relation with your horse is to ride him without using your reins, guiding him and controlling him entirely with your thoughts. You will find this very difficult at first, but it will improve with time. You should however always remember that you are using a method of communication that leaves the free will of the individual full play. The horse may disagree with you, and if he does, you have no control over him, but can only rely on his good nature. You may say 'let's go left,' and he may say 'no, I am going right.' You may say 'let's trot,' and he may answer by saying 'why should I bother.' But when there is a complete two-way play of e.s.p. and telepathy, you will find this does not occur very often, since you will both want to go the same way.

I have occasional trouble myself with free will. When I let the horses out, I let them free in the yard and they walk down the road or up the hill, directed to the field I want by a mixture of their habit, and my telepathic messages. But sometimes they say 'we are damned if we are going there, we want to go somewhere else,' and when this happens I have to run like the devil to get in front of them. But this sort of conflict is inevitable. When you are controlling a horse with your mind, he must have the freedom to reject your suggestions or accept them at will. The more you are getting through to the horse, the more he will get through to you, and the less often this will occur.

But if you are a weak character, a word of warning in using my methods. Don't whatever you do allow yourself to become a zdmbie, 'your mind and actions controlled by some lazy quadruped, for whom you work sixty hours a week in order to earn enough to keep hint in the comfort to which he has become accustomed!

 

 

APPENDIX

SOME PRACTICAL ADVICE TO HORSE-OWNERS

 

The most serious difficulties that arise between horse and owner are those that stem from the plain fact that the two are simply not suited to each other. Either the tempera­ment of the horse is wrong for the owner, or the horse is unsuitable for the purpose for which it is required: for example a nervous person should not have a horse that is any way excitable, and a person who really wants to go should never have a horse that wants only to stand around looking at the horizon.

This is why the purchase of a horse is so important and deserves a deal more thought and preparation that it nor­mally receives.

First of all, where should you buy it? In certain areas horses are much cheaper than in others: broadly speaking, in the belt stretching from London to the Midlands, horses are dearer than they are in other parts of the country. Obviously they are going to be cheaper in those areas which produce horses –the West of England, Wales, Yorkshire and parts of Scotland – and it is much better to go to one of these areas to select the horse to suit you, rather than to some plush dealer's yard in the suburbs. In either case you will probably end up with a very similar horse, the difference being that since the dealer had taken the trouble to go to the West Country or Wales or Ireland to buy that horse and take it back to his yard, you will have to pay fifty to one hundred pounds more than he paid for it. There are of course advantages in buying from a reputable dealer since (a) he is almost certainly a first-class judge of a horse and (b) if the horse you buy is unsuitable he will probably change it for another one. But you will have to pay him very handsomely for his expertise.

On the other hand I would not advise an inexperienced buyer to buy from a private individual, since in my experi­ence private individuals have a grossly inflated idea of their horse's value, and tend to be totally blind to his faults. If you have a very long purse you can buy privately a well-known and well proven horse; but very few of us have long purses and we have to buy the horse we want for as little as possible, which brings us to the place where I buy most of mine, which is at public auction.

To buy a horse at public auction, however, you need to be a reasonable judge of a horse yourself, or to have the advice of someone who is a reasonable judge. The best adviser without any doubt at all is a veterinary surgeon, but since it is extremely difficult to get a veterinary surgeon to come with you to an auction sale, a riding school proprietor who keeps the type of horse you have in mind is a good person to take along – provided of course he has not got a horse he wants to sell you himself! If you are going to an auction, it is important to go to one of the auctions in the horse-producing areas. The ones I know best, being a West-Country man and living in Wales, are Exeter, Abergavenny, Llanybyther (which is my own auction), Hay-on-Wye, Hereford, and Stow-on-the-Wold. At an auction in a horse-producing area a high proportion of the horses are being sold by people who breed horses com­mercially for sale, on their farms; whereas at the urban auctions you get a large number of throwouts from other people's stables, and so a much higher proportion of un­sound horses than at the rural auction.

But of course the rural auctions are usually held in dis­tant places, so you do have the problem and cost of transporting the horses to your home. There are three ways this can be done. You can go to the auction and contact someone there who expects to have an empty lorry going home. This is a little bit chancy. Or you can hire a Land-Rover and trailer yourself: or, ideally, persuade someone else to go down with you to buy a horse, and bring yours back in his Land-Rover and trailer. This will give you the additional advantage of an adviser on tap!

The type of horse to aim to buy at an auction is in fact something looking a little bit rough and thin, since this horse will increase in value. If you buy a horse already looking smart and polished it will cost you a lot more money, and at the same time there is always a chance that the spit and polish has been put there to hide some of his more glaring faults.

It is worth remembering, too, when you buy at a public auction, that you have four days to test out any warranty on that horse, and it is most important that you do this. If you buy a horse that is warranted as sound, as soon as you get it home you must have it thoroughly vetted. If you get a horse that is said to be quiet to ride in traffic, ride him in heavy traffic at once. It is also advisable to understand the various claims made about the horse in a catalogue. If it says that the horse is a good jumper, check that he is a good jumper. If it says he is suitable for a beginner, find the biggest beginner you know and put him on the horse and see how he gets on. Mind you, I have my own interpret­ations of the sales catalogue descriptions. They go some­thing like this: 'quiet to ride' means, roughly, 'has not bucked or bolted with anyone for a week and the vendor hopes it will not buck you off before the four days run out'. 'Recently broken' means that the vendor was hoping to sell it as a quiet ride, but the horse bucked his son off the day before yesterday and so he cannot give him that warranty. 'Has been backed' means the owner's son was put on and bucked off immediately. 'Will make a one-day-eventer' means that he will not make a show-jumper, point-to-pointer or a dressage horse. 'Good hunter' means 'will go out hunting provided you do not go too near the hounds and do not leave the road'. But this is just my rather humorous way of expressing a necessary scepticism. Never, never, never believe anything anybody tells you about a horse he is trying to sell. He probably believes it himself, but horse owners are rather like mothers, they cannot see any faults in their children, though they can see all their virtues. When you are buying a horse it is the faults you want to know about, not the virtues.

But do not let the foregoing discourage you. Provided you go to a rural auction, you should get a horse much cheaper than you will get it anywhere else, and you have the chance of buying a very good horse that has not done very much work. Always remember that ponies up to about fourteen-two are much cheaper in autumn than in the spring, and that hunters are much cheaper in the spring than in the autumn.

The type of horse you buy is of course of vital import­ance. First of all think honestly about your one personality. If you are in any way nervous or if you are worried about riding in heavy traffic you must get a quiet horse. It is no good buying a thoroughbred or an Arab because they tend to be excitable. If on the other hand you are a keen person and want to go in for competition work this type of horse is extremely suitable. If the horse has to be out all winter you must get one of the mountain or moorland types, since they winter out very well, whilst the thoroughbreds and Arabs need to be in. Again, one of the advantages of buying at an auction sale is that you will have a large number of horses to choose from, while even at the biggest dealer's yards there will be only a few of the type you want.

When you are at the auction buying the horse, the key to his personality can very often be seen in his behaviour as he stands in the stable, and as he stands outside the ring walk­ing in and out amongst the crowd. The crowd will worry some horses, but it will not worry others. Some will be irri­table and some will be placid. This will tell you something. But above all, the important thing is to pick the horse that you click with mentally: the horse that seems to be talking to you and not to anybody else. Buying a horse, I often think, is far more important than picking a wife. After all when you pick a wife it is only going to cost you a seven-and-sixpence licence, and if you are a little bit careful about your choice you can make her go out to work and keep you in the manner to which you would like to become accustomed. But if you are picking a horse it is going to cost you a hell of a lot of money in the first place and on top of this it is going to cost you six or seven pounds a week to keep it, which makes it a very different proposition. If you have got the right horse it is worth while, if you have got the wrong horse it is hell.

You have now bought your horse, for better or for worse, and you have managed to get it home and all the local horse pundits have been round to look at it and said nice things about it to your face and nasty things about it behind your back. This is absolutely inevitable, it does not matter what horse you buy they will always criticise it behind your back. But having got that over, and having tried it out thoroughly to see that its warranty is true, it is time to start working on him. If he is out, it is vital, to begin with anyway, that you see and handle and talk to him every day. This means quite simply whether you are riding him or not, that you must go out and spend half-an-hour to an hour talking to him in a field. And it is no good standing at the top of the field and carrying on a shouted conversation with him down at the far end. You want to fill your pockets with horse-and pony-nuts and go down and feed him one or two at a time, talk to him and watch him and thoroughly get to know him. Get to know him as a person. You will know you are beginning to get through to him when he does two things: first, when he gives you a whicker of welcome and comes over to talk to you; and second, when you see him start driving any other horses in the field away when they try to come to talk to you. This last will show you that you have become his, you belong to him, and he will look after you and do anything for you.

The next thing you will have to do is to catch your horse, and strangely enough I have found that there is a greater ignorance about catching horses than about anything else to do with them. Why this is I do not quite know – probably because most horses are extremely easy to catch –but if you have a horse that is in any way difficult, there is a standard procedure for catching him. First of all you have to get him to come to the bucket, and when he comes to eat out of a bucket quite happily and quietly, you can set about teaching him to be caught. You very slowly get him eating out of the bucket until he walks past you. Most horses, no matter how difficult, will come and pick out of a bucket at arm's length. Once they have really started eating you bring the bucket closer to you and then you bring it past you, until you are standing by the shoulder of the horse. Then you can slip your arm over the neck and make a fuss of him. Having done this you put the halter rope round his neck. If he tries to break away, let him go. Do not hang on, this is the worst thing you can do. He is much stronger than you and the chances are three to one that he will get away anyway. All you do is let him go and start again. Again you lead him past your body, put your arm over his neck, and slip the rope over his neck. Having done that you put the halter on from the far side, not the near side. If you try to put the halter on from the near side, he will swing away from the halter and away from you and get away. But if you put the halter on the far side of his head, the side away from you, if he swings away from the halter, he swings towards you, which means that if you go on quietly you can slip the halter on quite easily. Again, if you have a difficult horse to catch, it is usually far simpler to lead him into the stable following a bucket (pro­vided the stable is reasonably near the field and there are no busy main roads to cross), than it is to halter him in the field and lead him in with the halter.

I had to use this technique only a short time ago. Four of our horses got out on to Llanybyther mountain, and it so happened that two of them were young horses who had never been haltered and the other two were very difficult to catch anyway. But I had been feeding them in the field, and when I went up to talk to them they would come up and eat out of the bucket. After about two hours looking, we man­aged to find them about three miles away across the moun­tain. So, I just stood there, about three or four hundred yards away from them, rattled the bucket and shouted, and they came hell for leather. As soon as they each had a mouthful out of the bucket, I started to walk home, and all four of them followed me the three miles home, taking a mouthful every now and then, without any trouble at all. If I had tried to catch and halter those horses, I would have spent hours at it. Possibly it would have been better if I had spent the time teaching them to be caught, but two thou- sand acres of open mountain is not an ideal situation for teaching a horse to be caught. That is something you want to do in a reasonably confined space, in our experience a yard about twenty yards by thirty yards.

You will of course at times have your horse in the stable. He may be in the stable all the time or you may just bring him in to saddle and bridle him. But it is here that the really important work is done. You must get your horse understanding you, get him to understand what you want him to do quite clearly, and at the same time you must be consistent. It is no good teaching him one day to eat out of your pocket and the next day hitting him on the nose for doing just that. It is here that you teach him that he is a subordinate member of the herd to you, and that you are boss. You must not let him push you about, and if he bites or kicks you, bite or kick him back. There are no two ways about this. Just as he must trust you in every way, you must be able to trust him absolutely, and you have no hope whatsoever of being able to control him riding, if you cannot control him on the ground. If you are afraid of him on the ground you will be afraid of him on his back, and it is on the ground and in the stable that you develop trust with your horse. If you are unable to do this it is far better to sell him at once to someone who can handle him, rather than keep him yourself. This is perhaps not important as far as you are concerned, but what does concern me is that your horse will not be happy. It is a piece of supreme arrogance to think that you will look after your horse-better than anyone'else and that you will love him more than anyone else will. Most people love their horses or they would not keep them, and most people look after them to the best of their ability, so it is important for the horse that he should be owned by someone who can handle and understand him, rather than be owned by someone who is a little bit afraid of him. A spoilt horse is rather like a spoilt child: he is unhappy, discontented and he tends to be ill-treated. Today in my opinion there is far more ill-treatment of horses and dogs through over-indulgence and lack of dis­cipline than there is through outright cruelty.

The whole time you are in the field with the horse and in the stable with the horse, as well as when you are riding him, you should be talking to liim and trying to observe and understand the signs and sounds he uses to you. This will lead to a better understanding between you and the horse and to a much better performance.

Feeding is quite simple. A horse should be well fed but not over-fed. There has been a great deal written in count­less books about feeding, so I am not going into it in detail here, but the most important thing to remember about grazing is that the horse is a selective feeder and a field that to the layman's eye may have an awful lot of grass in it, may be starvation conditions for a horse, as a horse likes short sweet grass and will not eat tough grass. Long rank grass is not suitable grazing for a horse or a pony.

I have dealt with discipline on the ground, and discipline when you are riding is very similar. We aim to have all our horses enjoying what they are doing as much as possible, but there are times when the horse has to do things that he does not enjoy doing. But it does not matter what we ask a horse to do, he must do just that. I always say that if I asked a horse to climb Mount Everest the horse would have to climb Mount Everest, but of course you must never ask a horse to do something he is not capable of doing. If you have asked him to do something, you must persevere until he does it. Before now I have spent four hours trying to get a horse to walk over a low bank when there was an open gateway twenty yards further down. I had turned him over the low bank before I got to the gate because it seemed quicker, to save myself half a minute; but the horse said he would not go over, so I just stayed there, and kept walk­ing him into the bank until he walked over and it took me four hours to do it. First I asked Winberto to walk over the bank, and Winberto said 'no', so having said 'please will you walk over the bank' and had the reply 'no I will not', I then insisted 'you have damned well got to.' When we are handling our horses we always say 'please will you', but at the back of that 'please' is the determination that the horse will have to do it anyway. You do the basic work on this on the ground, if you walk into him when he is standing in your way, you ask him 'please will you get out of my way,' and if he still stands there you catch him a slap so that he knows he must get out of the way because you are boss. But you can only do this with a horse when you know and understand him, so that when you smack him, he will stand back and say 'what the hell was that for?' And two minutes later he is all over you again. We always say that when you have a row with a horse you have to make it up with him afterwards. After having had a fight with a difficult horse we go and make a terrific fuss of him. I would not like you to think that I spend a lot of my time hitting my horses, because I do not, I very rarely hit or clout a horse and when I am riding it is the exception when I carry a stick with me. But there is no point in my giving advice on how to deal with a horse who behaves perfectly, so I have picked on the exceptional cases when discipline is necessary. I always say I only have to hit a horse once if he is being a little bit difficult. I pick a situation where he is going to say 'no I will not,' and then I hit him hard and when I hit a horse I hit him hard. I do not tap, tap with a stick, I really lace him on both sides so that afterwards he will always remember being hit and I do not have to hit him again. There is nothing that annoys me more, when I am watching people riding, than to see them tap, tap, tap with the stick. It is not doing the horse any good, it only annoys him. It is far better if you are going to use a stick to really use it. But of course you must never on any occasion hit a horse unless he is doing something that is very wrong.

You should be able to get the maximum amount of scold­ing into your voice. I always aim to be able, when I have had a horse for about three weeks, to go into a field and shout 'come on my darlings' and have all the horses come galloping over to me. When I am handling or riding a horse, after two or three months a horse should do any­thing I want him to, without my actually asking him. I like my horses to anticipate what I want. As soon as I show a horse a jump, he should be tearing to get over it. When you take your horse out for a ride, it is important that you are enjoying what you are going to do, but it is equally import­ant that your horse should enjoy it, since if both your horse and you are enjoying what you are doing you will add to each other's enjoyment. I hate watching the German riders on television, because they tend towards a type of precision and discipline that treats the horse as a robot and not as another person. The rider dominates and demands obedi­ence. Even for a horse that is handled only at week-ends a certain amount of schooling is important, since it will in­crease the horse's ability and enjoyment and so increase your own enjoyment; but the type of schooling you give him depends on what you want to do. The dressage type of schooling is very fashionable at the moment, though I far prefer the polo type. Dressage schooling involves doing everything on an even stride and all your movements have to be even and smooth, whereas the polo type of schooling involves far more abrupt movements and teaches the horse to work off an uneven stride. It is fine preparation for cross country work, steeple-chasing and hunting, since in any of these pursuits you will tend to get situations where you have to jump on an uneven stride, or turn very sharply, and a horse that will change legs at a mere shift of your body and can jump and turn at the same time, and put himself right and shorten and extend his stride automatically, has a very great advantage. I find dressage work uncongenial also because anticipation is very much discouraged, whereas I like my horses to anticipate whit I am going to ask them to do and do it before they have been asked.

But whatever form of schooling you decide upon, it is extremely important thatyou should never have a fight with your horse during a schooling session. He should look on your schooling area as a place where he is going to enjoy himself, and not associate it with an unpleasant experience. You should start teaching you horse the basic things you want to school him in during a normal ride: for example if you want to teach your horse to back, you should get him backing before you take him into the schooling area, which should be the place where you put polish on to the move­ments the horse is already dding. When you want to teach your horse to jump, the simple way to do it is when you are out riding normally. You get three or four horses cantering along in front of you, and just pop over a tree trunk lying on the ground – anything small, about one foot to eighteen inches high, just so that the horse has to take off – and you you will find that instead of having to teach the horse to jump he will come to jumping qmte naturally. It is best if you can find a fence without a lot of daylight on either side of it. With nine horses out of ten, if three or four horses are cantering along in front of him, and he is tearing along to catch up with them, just as they pop over the tree trunk he will jump over quite naturally. After that, whenever you see a small obstacle you can jump, you just pop over it, and slowly by degrees the jumps that you take him over will rise in height.

This comes back to the basic principle of teaching a horse to do anything: if he sees other horses doing it and enjoying it, and you are looking forward to doing it and enjoying it yourself, the horse will also want to do it.

A classic example of this interaction happened to me about twenty years ago. I had a young chestnut thorough­bred which I had just started riding, and I had only been riding him about ten days when the hounds met nearby. I took him out to have a look, mainly to give him an interest and he enjoyed it and found time went quite quickly. I was with a friend of mine, Bill Manfield, and we cantered down the lane and came round the corner and there was a three-foot-six-inch gate right across the lane. Bill was on his very good hunter, Melody, and he as a matter of course went straight on over it and before I knew anything the three-year-old had followed the mare. He had never jumped anything in his life, and the first thing he jumped was a three-foot-six-inch gate. This just shows what can be done, provided you take sometiiing as it arises in its natural course, and do not make a great issue of doing anything. If you treat the young horse as if he had been doing it all his life, he will do it, but if you go into it wondering 'will he or won't he, can he or can't he', the horse is sure to stop. If you enjoy jumping your horse will enjoy jumping and will jump well. If you do not like jumping, your horse will not, and if neither of you likes jumping, do not jump. This is the key to the whole thing.

Finally, here are some do's and don'ts when you are handling your horse. Do get a horse that suits your tem­perament, do not get one that is beyond your abilities. Do remember that beauty is only skin deep and do not be taken in by spit and polish. Do remember that a horse who looks rough and thin can always be improved, whereas one who is fat, glossy and finished can only lose in value. Do be boss and do not be dominated by your horse. Do what you enjoy doing, do not do something just because your friends do it. Do observe his signs and sounds, but do not let your im­agination run away with you. Back everything up with sound observations. Do say 'please will you' before you ask a horse to do anything, and be sure to back it up with determination to enforce your wishes. But above all do not ask a horse to perform beyond his capabilities. Do school regularly but do not fight in the schooling arena. Do think like a horse but do not endow him with human qualities, feelings and responses, because he is not a human being – fortunately for the horse! Do observe his natural wishes and desires, but do not spoil him. Do enforce dis­cipline but do not be a martinet. Do teach him to jump naturally, but do not over-jump him: about twelve to fifteen fences a day is enough for most horses. Last of all please remember that it is important for the horse to enjoy himself, to be happy and to be comfortable, but that this cannot be achieved without firmness and discipline.

 


Date: 2015-04-20; view: 751


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