If from this foundation we go on to specific training of the
charger--still working, of course, concurrently at the gymnastic side
of his training also--to accustoming him to the curb, then by the end
of February the remount ought easily to be ready to be placed in the
ranks.
Side by side with this increase of rapidity in his training, we both
can and must make the individual training the foundation of his whole
education, so that from the very first the horse learns to go alone
and with safety in all kinds of ground.
The very first lessons to accustom him to both saddle and rider are
better given on the lunging rein than when led by an older horse, for
nothing teaches the bad habit of 'sticking' more than this last
practice. And since now the first months of training fall in the
summer, we can avail ourselves of the fine weather to send out the
young horses in charge of trustworthy riders, some of whom must be
left behind even during the manoeuvres, to go singly or in small
groups under suitable supervision, which can easily be arranged, out
into the country, if possible into woods and fairly difficult ground,
to habituate them to minor obstacles and the objects one meets with,
instead of, as formerly, keeping them in the school or manege, and
making them into 'stickers' first, only to have the trouble of
breaking them of the habit, often after many a hard tussle,
afterwards.
All through their subsequent training they must constantly be sent out
singly into the country, and even in the school itself they should be
exercised as little as possible in squads one behind the other.
It goes without saying that only the best horsemen should be trusted
with the young horses, for bad habits developed at the beginning of
their instruction are of all the most difficult to correct hereafter,
and may ruin the result of all one's trouble.
That in this way we can meet the requirements of the service much more
rapidly than by existing methods cannot be open to question and may be
taken as practically settled, and similar considerations apply to the
recruits.
The system laid down in the regulations does not go directly enough to
the purpose, a consequence, no doubt, of the fact that we have now
better horses on which to instruct them than at the time these
instructions were evolved.
If one begins as soon as possible with the gallop and individual
riding--if necessary on the lunge--and allows the recruit as soon as
he has acquired anything approaching a firm seat to practise the aids
for the leg and the side paces--passage and shoulder-in--one will
attain quite different results than from riding only on straight lines
and practising closing in the ranks. The practice in the use of the
legs makes the men more independent and individual, compels them to
trust to their seat, and not to hang on by the reins.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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