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Now to metamorphose "a hack" into "a hunter" is principally effected by the bridle, and yet the great difficulty of the art is to learn not how much, but how little to use it; in short, a considerable portion of what the bridle has done has to be undone. Accordingly, instead of being encouraged to travel on his haunches with his fore legs lightly touching the ground, the latter must be required to bear the greater portion of the burden, which it is the duty of the hind legs to propel. The head has to be brought down to its proper level; and to induce or rather to oblige the horse to make his eyes the lantern of his feet, to study geology instead of astronomy, he should be slowly ridden, with a loose rein, over every little hole, grip, or heap that would be likely to throw a hack down. Whenever he can be made to stumble (if the rider feels that he will not actually fall), the reins should instantly be dropped. In like manner he should be walked for several days over the roughest ground that can be found, particularly land that has been excavated to obtain the substratum and left in holes. With a perfectly loose rein he should be gently trotted, gently cantered, and gently galloped over a surface of this description, the rider always dropping the rein when he blunders. Vegetius, in describing the horsemanship of the Parthians in the time of Xerxes, states that in order to make their horses sure-footed over rough, broken ground, they placed on a space of level ground a number of wooden troughs of different heights, filled with earth, over which in galloping they had many falls.