At the same time it is undoubtedly a slur on any cavalry officer that he should be unable to train a remount. If he is not a rich man, it is well worth his while to learn, so as to train his own polo ponies and hunters. Many officers do so most successfully. Scores of horses, cast as unruly animals, are, by the aid of some of our riding-school methods, quickly brought to hand, and turn out most useful and temperate hunters or polo ponies. A comparison of military and civilian horsemanship is not a desirable theme, but it is surprising how many of the horsemen of the nation, even those who ride to hounds and between flags, are profoundly ignorant of all-round horsemanship and horse-training. The writer recently counted only four horses, out of some twenty running in an important race at Punchestown, a right-handed course, which passed the stand with the right leg leading. The four who were leading with the right leg gained at least four or five lengths at the next fence, which is on the turn. Very few six-year-old hunters answer to their rider’s legs, or are really nice horses to ride. A bending lesson every day for a month in a good military rough-rider’s hands would do them an immense amount of good. One of the recent innovations which has done most to improving our squadron horses in cross-country work is the introduction of the free-jumping lane for remounts: thanks to which horses get used to jumping, and regard it as fun instead of a penance accompanied by jabs in the mouth. Another most important factor in the training of remounts is the system of long reining. The colonel of a regiment, in which the horses were particularly well trained, assured me that he considered this proficiency was due principally to long reining. His system was to take a couple of non-commissioned officers, whom he found were getting too fat, and let them do all the long reining. When I saw them, neither of the long reiners were much too fat; both, from long practice, at often as many as fifteen or twenty remounts per diem, were such adepts that, in their hands, the remounts, as yet almost unbacked, had learnt nearly half their lessons. The value of this system no doubt depends largely on the operator. There may be something also in the adage, “Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.” The patient-minded man is an asset in this work. A suggestion recently made that the reins should be carried from the bit to a pulley at the highest point of the pad, and then vertically to another pulley on the side, and so to the operator’s hands, is full of common-sense, as it ensures the horse holding his head right whilst there is control of the hind quarters.[97]