Equitation (Illustrated Edition) (Dodo Press)

"FOR seventy-six years, as cavalier, as student, as instructor, I have ridden, under every sort of conditions, horses of every type, every conformation, and every breeding. My first experiment, at the age of five, was with a donkey, young and entirely unbroken. At the beginning, I was more often on the ground than on the donkey's back; but after six months of perseverance, all its gambols failed to unseat me. At eight years, I had a pony, thirteen and a half hands high; and I received instruction from the Comte d'Aure, Esquire-in-Chief of the cavalry school. "