The horses pace very solemnly around the great ring, and you adjust yourself with wonderful dignity, feeling that your master must perceive by your improved carriage and by the general perfection of your aspect that your exquisite timidity and charming shyness have been responsible for your awkwardness in former lessons, when other pupils were present, but now he leaves your side and takes a position in the centre of the ring, whence he addresses you thus: 

“Keep your reins even!  The right ones are too short, the left too long!  Stop him!  That is not stopping him!  He took two steps forward after he checked himself.  Go forward, and try again when I tell you.  Stop!  Not so hard, not so hard!  You are making him back!  Extend your arms forward!  There!  A little more, and you would have made him rear!  Whoa!  Wo-ho!  Now listen!  Not so!  Don’t drop your reins in that way, and sit so carelessly that a start would throw you from your place!  Never leave your horse to himself a second!  Sit as well as you can, look between your horse’s ears and listen!  Always use some discretion in choosing your place to stop.  Do not try to stop when turning a corner, even to avoid danger, but rather change your direction.  In the ring, never stop on the track, unless in obedience to your masters order, but turn out into the centre, but when you have once told your horse to stop, make him do it, for his sake, as well as for your own, if you have to spend an hour in the effort.  And it will be an hour well spent, so that you need not lose patient, and if you do lose it, do not allow your horse to perceive it.

“To stop, you should press your leg and your whip against your horse’s sides; lift your hands a very little, and turn them in toward your body, lean back and draw yourself up.  There are six things to do:  two to your horse, one on each side of him, two with your hands and two with your body, and you must do them almost simultaneously.  Unless you do the first two, your horse will surely take a forward step or two after stopping, in order to bring himself into a comfortable position.  If you do not cease doing the last four the moment that your horse has stopped, he may rear or he may back several steps, and he should never do that, but should await an order for each step.  Now, do you remember the six things?  Very well!  Go forward!  Stop!  Did I tell you to do anything with your arms?  No> Well, why did you bring your elbows back of your waist, then?  It is allowable to do that —­to save your life, but not to stop your horse.  Bend your hands at the wrist, turning the knuckles, if need be, until they are at right angles with their ordinary position, so that the back of your hand is toward your horse’s ears, but keep the thumb uppermost all the time.

“Now, think it over a moment!  Go forward!  Stop!  Pretty well!  Go on!  Don’t lean forward too much when you start, and sit up again instantly.