XLII.
There are a number of little exercises which you ought by no means to omit, as, for instance, practicing Nelly in backing quickly, handily, and without losing her balance. This is only to be done by slow degrees, a few steps at a time, and by generously rewarding progress as she increases her number of backward steps. Never force her. Use persuasion only. In doing this, watch that she is always well poised. Otherwise she cannot back properly. You must also teach her, by that use of the reins and legs which you will already have learned, to change direction as she backs, as easily as she does in moving forward. These necessary things she has already been crudely taught in her breaking-in.
If Nelly has the pride of a courageous horse, as I should judge by her bright eye that she had, she will be fairly greedy of kind words and caresses. And I trust you will never allow her to become afraid of the whip. You should be able to switch your whip all about her face without her heeding it. Reward goes much farther than punishment. The latter needs very rarely to be resorted to. I have never used it, barring in isolated cases, but what afterwards I was ashamed of it, and not infrequently I have made most sincere apology and amends to the sufferer. But the harm done has always been hard to eradicate. An impatient man quickly loses his standing in the confidence and affection of an intelligent horse. In your training, a whip will be much more useful than a crop. The latter is but a badge of fashion, of absolutely no use on the road, and of but little in education.
Now, Tom, I have suggested to you a number of very crude rules for training your mare. Like Captain Jack Bunsby I ought to add that "the bearings of this observation lays in the application on it." But by the patient aid of even these simple methods, intelligently used, you will have given Nelly an easy mouth, you will have suppled her forehand and croup, and you will have taught her to canter with either foot in the lead.
Everything which I have told you can be put to use by a lady as well as a man. But a lady needs preliminary teaching in a school, because it is neither pleasant nor safe for her to be on the road quite untaught. But having acquired a seat and some little control of her horse, she can apply all the rules I have given you, using her whip as a man would use his right leg. The short skirts of the day enable her to use her left leg as readily as you can.
The gallop comes of itself, and needs but care that your own position is good and does not lose firmness or interfere with your hands. Better sit down to the gallop. The jockey habit of galloping in the stirrups is rarely of use except as a means of changing your own seat and sometimes of easing your horse across ploughed fields or bad ground. It is never proper for the road.
XLIII.
Having got thus far, you will surely want to teach the mare to jump and yourself to sit her firmly when she does so. Perhaps you may choose to defer the tedious processes described and go at jumping at once.
If you think you can sit a fairish jump, probably the best plan is to follow the hounds in a quiet way some day, if it happens to be in their season. A great many horses will jump imitatively when in company and do pretty clean simple work. There is a bit of a chance for a blunder this way, because a horse unused to jumping cannot gauge his work and may come down. But by taking him slowly at his fences, perhaps at a walk, there is comparatively little risk. It is the exceptional horse who will jump well in cold blood, like Patroclus in the illustrations. But any horse can be taught to do so in a measure, and no horse can be called a hunter unless he will do so cleverly.
If you first go out with the hounds, there is some danger that if your seat is insecure you will drag Nelly back from her leaps, and worry or confuse her so much that you will lose a deal of ground. Though, indeed, she will be less readily spoiled if she gets excited by the chase, than if put at equally high jumps as a lesson, because her eagerness to keep up with the other horses will exceed her annoyance at your unsteady hands.
I would advise you, on the whole, to have a little practice in some quiet spot all by yourself. A horse who will only jump in company is far from perfect in this accomplishment. A well-trained horse should jump a three and a half foot gate or an eight foot ditch at any time as willingly as start into a sharp gallop.
ABOUT TO LAND
Plate XIII.ABOUT TO LAND.
I assume that Nelly knows nothing of leaping. Wander off into the fields somewhere. Find a place where there is a gate or fence of several bars. Let all these down but one or two,—leaving enough in height for Nelly to step over if she lifts her feet way up,—say twenty inches. A fallen log is an excellent thing to try on. Make her cross and recross the bar or log a number of times, by persuasion only. Any horse will step over a high bar if you stand him in front of it and encourage him. Don't scold or strike her. Nothing disheartens the learning or courageous horse so much.
From the days of Xenophon down, any one who loses his temper in training a horse, or uses any but gentle means, violates the precept, practice, and experience of all successful horsemen.
"But never to approach a horse in a fit of anger is the one great precept and maxim of conduct in regard to the treatment of a horse; for anger is destitute of forethought, and consequently often does that of which the agent must necessarily repent." Xen. Horsemanship, vi. 13.
Curiously enough, in spite of this rule, Xenophon advocates the use of the whip and spur in teaching a horse to leap—the gravest error, I think, of this exceedingly sensible horseman.
It has been said that you should not make a horse keep on jumping the same obstacle, because he sees no reason for doing it, and feels that you are making a fool of him. But my experience is that a horse likes to jump at any well-known thing, if he has been petted or rewarded for cleverly clearing it. A horse who has been given a bit of sugar or apple after jumping is far from feeling that he has been made a fool of, even if he is jumped a dozen times over the same obstacle. And every horse goes with double confidence at a thing he has leaped before. It is the horse who knows the country who makes easiest headway and quickest after hounds, and is oftenest in at the death. At the same time it is true that a horse can be spoiled by leaping him in cold blood much more easily than when in the company of many others. And it is also true that if a horse is ridden at different things in succession, if such can be readily found, he learns to take whatever comes in his path more handily than if he is confined to only one jump. Still, after once learning to jump any one obstacle, the lesson is easily carried farther by riding across simple bits of country.
As soon as Nelly walks right over the bar without hesitation or any pause longer than enough to lift her feet, walk or jog her up to it a bit faster. She will soon find that it is less exertion for her to rise to it with both feet at once, and hop over it, than to lift her feet so high. As soon as she has caught this idea, reward her with a nibble of something, for she has made her first step in learning the lesson. A little sugar, salt, or a bit of apple, or a green leaf or two, or a bunch of grass you will find to be wonderful incentives.
Don't raise the bar too soon or too much. When Nelly is quite familiar with the small jump at a slow gait, trot her at it. Most horses can jump well from a trot. In fact some of the best riders always trot up to timber. It is a temptation of Providence to try to fly a stiff bit of timber, unless you have a wonderful jumper who knows you well, or unless you are at the beginning of a run, when your horse is in his best condition; and Providence should never be tempted except when a considerable result lies trembling in the balance.
When Nelly takes the obstacle cleverly from a trot, canter her at it, and gradually she will take pleasure in hopping over it, particularly if she now and then gets a tidbit at the other side. Moreover, this tidbit will accomplish another object. It will teach your mare not to rush as soon as she clears her fence, which a horse who is whipped at his jumps almost always does. By insensible degrees and within a few weeks you will get Nelly to jump three feet high, or even three and a half. If she can do this in cold blood, "clane and cliver," she will be able to do anything within reason which you need when in company. You can try her in just the same way at small, then at large ditches, always keeping to the familiar place and rewarding success, until Nelly learns what jumping in the abstract is. After that, try her at all kinds of things in moderation.
There is more than a grain of good sense in the idea that a horse does not want to be made to jump unnecessarily. And it is true that some horses get stubborn if always put at the same obstacle without an object. But if a horse associates praise and reward with jumping, he will be ready for it at any proper time. You should, however, avoid making a tired horse leap except when it is absolutely necessary. Let him do this work when he is fresh. You of course know that a really stanch horse is usually fresher after five or ten miles of average speed than at the start. The best of stayers are often quite dull until they get their legs stretched and their bodies emptied. This particularly applies to aged horses. And perhaps the very worst time to jump a horse is when he is just out of the stall.
XLIV.
How about holding the reins in the jump? Well, now we come to debatable ground. To-day's fashion tells you to use both hands. The old-fashioned English habit, as well as the necessary habit of the soldier and of all other riders who have work to do, is to use the bridle hand alone. I prefer the latter habit. Only a half-trained horse needs both hands. A good jumper ought to want to jump, not have to be steered and shoved over an obstacle. I am willing to allow that some brutes have to be so steered; but if a horse is well-taught, likes to leap, and can be safely ridden at an obstacle with one hand, why use two? If a man is astride a horse who must be steered, let him use both. If he can teach his horse to be true at his jumps with but one hand, both will have gained a point, and be one hand better off. For two hands may be used at any time, if called for.
A sound and vigorous horse, who has been properly taught to jump, will take anything which he feels that his rider himself means to go over. If you want utterly to spoil your Nelly, ride her at things you yourself feel uncertain about clearing. She will quickly find out your mood from your hands. The only rule for keeping your mare true to her work is never to ride at anything which you have not made up your mind to carry her over. Be true to yourself in your ambition to jump, and Nelly will be true to you. It is usually the horses that have been fooled by uncertain hearts and tremulous hands who fail you at the critical moment, or who have to be steered over their fences. So long as your horse has jumping ability, and you have a "warm heart and a cool head," you can go anywhere.
A generation ago no one was ashamed of even letting his right arm fly up now and then, for it was not in olden times the extremity of "bad form" which it is now pronounced to be. Look over Doyle or Leech for proof of this. But the main argument against the unnecessary use of two hands is that you may absolutely require your right hand for something else, while it certainly argues a poor training or character in a horse to make it asine qua nonfor you to employ both at every leap. Of what avail would a trooper be in a charge, with his horse bounding over dismounted companions, dead, or, worse still, wounded and struggling horses, and all manner of obstacles, if he had to steer his horse with his sword-hand? And not infrequently you will find, in the peaceful charge after harmless Reynard, that your right arm is better employed in fending off blows from stray branches or in opening a passage through a close cover, than in holding on to one of your reins. Have you never been through a bullfinch where you must part the clustering branches if you were to scramble through and avoid the wondrous wise man's bramble-bush experience? Have you never felt your hat going at the instant your horse was taking off? Have you never seen just the neatest place in the hedge obstructed by a single branch, which your right arm could thrust aside as you flew over? Have you never, O my hunting brother, had to make an awfully sudden grab at your horse's mane?
And while I am happy to defer to the opinion of some of the most noted steeple-chasers and first-flight men in this controversy, when they call single-hand jumping a hateful practice, and ascribe to it half the bad habits of the hunter and the crooked seats of the rider, I am satisfied to look at the portraits of such wonderful equestrians as Captain Percy Williams, or Tom Clarke, huntsman of the Old Berkshire, and a dozen others that could be instanced, all using the bridle hand alone, and some of them even forgetting that it is "bad form" to let the right elbow leave the side. Bad form, forsooth! These portraits would scarcely have been thus painted if the habit had met the disapproval of the celebrated horsemen in question.
So far as you are concerned, Tom, you will learn while Penelope is learning. Use your snaffle bit alone. A man needs light hands to jump with a curb, or else his horse must have a leather mouth. Whenever Nelly has made up her mind to jump, let her have her head. Don't try to tell her when to take off. Leave that to her, and don't flurry her while she is making up her mind when and where to do it. Leave that to the very experienced rider. If she is jumping from a stand, or slow trot, you can say a word of encouragement to her, but by no means do so at a gallop, when within a stride or two of the jump. Be ready, however, to draw rein sufficient to give her some support as soon as she has landed.
You will find that when Nelly jumps, the strong and quick extension of her hind legs will throw you into the air and forward. To obviate this settle down in your seat, in other words, "curl your sitting bones under you," use your legs (not your heels), and lean back just enough not to get thrown from your saddle. Don't try any of the fancy ideas about first leaning forward to ease her croup while she takes off. You will come a cropper if you do. Lean back. It will not take you long to find out how much, and the leaning forward will come of itself.
XLV.
It is often alleged by old cross-country riders that the best hunters land on their hind feet. Many no doubt land so quickly and so well gathered that they give to the eye the appearance of so doing. But I doubt if photography would really show them to land other than on one fore foot, instantly relieved by the second one planted a short stride farther on, and followed by the corresponding hind ones in succession. Plate XIV. shows what I mean, and the same thing appears in all the Muybridge photographs. But your eye can by no means catch Patroclus in this position. His hind legs seem to follow his fore legs much more closely; and he always lands cleverly and so well gathered as to make not the slightest falter in his new stride. It is also said that the best water-jumpers skim and do not rise much to the jump. But I fancy that every horse rises more to water than the fancy drawn pictures show. Gravitation alone, it seems, would make this necessary. Photography would prove the fact, but there are probably not enough such photographs extant to-day to decide upon the question.
You may read a dozen volumes about jumping, Tom, but a dozen jumps will teach you a dozen times as much as the printer's ink. And remember that a standing or an irregular jump, even if small, or that the leap of a pony, is harder to sit than a well-timed jump of twice the dimensions on a full grown horse. I have been nearly dismounted in teaching a new horse much oftener than in the hunting-field. It is only when your horse comes down, or when a bad jumper rushes at his fence and then swerves or refuses suddenly, that there is any grave danger of a fall in riding to hounds.
Don't be afraid of a fall. It won't hurt you much in nineteen cases out of twenty. If you find you are really going and can't save yourself, don't stiffen. Try to flop, the more like a drunken man the better. It is rigid muscles which break bones. This is a hard rule to learn. Many falls alone teach its uses. A suggestion will by no means do so. But hold on to your reins for your life, Tom, when you fall. This is one of the most important things to remember. It has saved many a man from being dragged.
A man who brags that he has never had a fall may be set down as having never done much hard riding. Many a time and oft have the very best riders and their steeds entered the next field in Tom Noddy's order:
And yet how few bones there are broken for the number of falls. A good shaking up is all there is to it, as a rule. When a man mellows into middle life—(how much farther on in years middle life is when we are well past forty than when we are twenty-five!)—he is apt to feel discreet, because conscious that a bad spill may hurt him worse than in his youth, and he will look upon a "hog-backed stile" as a thing requiring a deal of deliberation, if not a wee bit jumping-powder. He will avoid trying conclusions whenever he can. But at your age and with your legs, on that mare of yours, Tom, you should go anywhere, if she will learn to jump cleverly.
Your feet should be "home" in the stirrups, and you will naturally throw them slightly backward as you hold on, toes down, because it both gives you the better grip and keeps your stirrup on your foot. In this particular, Tom, I bid you heed my precept, and not study my example, which is by no means of the best, as I am reduced to jumping with a straight leg, and to fastening my stirrup to my foot, lest I should not find it when I land.
XLVI.
The Englishman's method and seat for cross-country riding is undeniably the best, and perhaps is hardly to be criticised. But a good seat or hands for hunting are not necessarily good for all other saddle work. That firmness in the saddle which will take a man over a five-foot wall may not be of the same quality as will give him absolutely light hands for School-riding. For as a rule, Englishmen prefer hunters who take pretty well hold of the bridle, and work well up to the bit. And for this one purpose, perhaps they are right. Such a hold will not, however, teach a man the uses of light hands in the remotest degree.
In a sharp run to hounds, a horse must have his head. For high pace or great exertions of mere speed, the horse must be free. A twitch on the curb may check him at a jump and give him a bad fall. As in racing, a horse has to learn that his duty is to put all his courage, speed, and jumping ability into his work, subject only to discreet guidance and management. But on the road, the exact reverse should be the rule. There is surely less enjoyment in your Penelope, who to-day can only walk, or else go a four-minute gait without constant friction, than there will be when she can vary her gaits and keep up any desired rate of speed, from a walk to a fifteen-mile trot or a sharp gallop, at the least intimation of your hands and without discomfort to herself. I know of nothing more annoying than to be forced by a riding companion of whichever sex into a sharper gait than either of you wish to go, because mounted on a fretting horse, who cannot be brought down to a comfortable rate of speed until all but tired out.
In the hunting-field you expect to go fast for a short time, and it is alone the speed and the occasional obstacle which lend the zest to the sport. But for the ride on the road, which to many of us is a lazy luxury, you need variety in speed as well as gaits for both comfort and pleasure. Patroclus here will walk, amble, rack, single-foot, trot, canter, gallop, and run, or go from any one into any other at will; and every one of these gaits is unmistakably distinct, crisp, and well performed. Nor have I ever found him any the less accomplished cross-country, within his limitation of condition and speed, for having had a complete education for the road. When I give him his head and loosen my curb, I find him just as free as if I had never restrained him from choosing his own course. Who can deny that the pleasure to be derived from such a horse for daily use does not exceed that to be got from one who can only trot on the road, or run and jump in the field?
LANDING
Plate XIV.LANDING.
Perhaps Nelly will never learn so much, for Patroclus is an exceptionally intelligent and well-suppled horse. But she can learn a good deal of it. Patroclus had no idea of any gait but a walk or trot when I bought him, nor did he start with any better equipment than Penelope; and in less than a year he knew all that he knows now, and much that he has forgotten. For in the many High School airs which he once could at call perform, he is altogether rusty from sheer lack of usage. But the "moral" may remain, though the fable may have long since passed from the memory.
XLVII.
Some horses, who trot squarely, will go naturally from a walk into a little amble or pace, which is sometimes called a "shuffle." Often this is an agreeable and handsome gait, but not infrequently far from pleasant. Often, too, it will spoil the speed of the walk, as the horse will insensibly fall into it if pushed beyond his ease. A slower rate at a faster pace is always easier to a horse than the extreme of speed at the lesser gait. It is scarcely worth while in the East to try to teach a horse to amble or rack if he does not naturally do so, though it can often be done.
Apart from the agreeable and useful side of the true rack as a gait, it has not a few further advantages. In coming from a canter to a walk, a horse may be taught to slow up into a rack, and then drop to the walk, or to stop in the same manner. This enables him to come down without the least suspicion of that roughness which almost all horses show when stopping a canter, particularly if done quickly; unless, indeed, they be "poised" before being stopped, as a School-ridden horse always is from every gait. Moreover, when you rein a cantering horse down within the slowest limit of his speed at that pace, as to allow a team to pass, or for a similar purpose, if he knows how, he will fall into a rack, from which he can with much more comfort to himself and you resume the canter, than if he had fallen into a walk. A rack is not an interruption of the canter, as is a jog or walk, but a mereretardando, as it were. Still a rapid walk, a trot which varies from six to ten miles, and a well-collected canter suffice for any of our Eastern needs. These, and the gallop, moreover, are considered the only permissible paces by the School-riders of Europe.
In our Southern States rackers are bred for, and the instinct is confirmed by training. In many warm countries, ambling is bred for. I do not think that any horse with practically but a single gait, as is usually the case with the ambler or racker, comes up to the requisite standard of usefulness. Of the two, I should give my preference, in our latitude, to a mere trotter, if easy, who had a busy walk beside. But in addition to the trot and canter, any comfortable gait may often be a relief, and it is eminently desirable, if the horse can learn it without spoiling his proper paces. Such a gait adds vastly to a horse's value for the saddle.
I cannot agree with the School-riders that a rack may not be a good School gait. Patroclus' rack, when collected, is certainly as clean a performance as any of his other gaits. From it he will drop back to a walk, or fall into a canter or gallop with either lead, or into a square trot. And this more quickly than from another gait, for if, in a canter, the indication to trot be given him out of season, he may be obliged to complete one more stride before he can execute the order; whereas, from a rack, which is always a mid-stride for any gait, he can instantly fall into the one commanded. The indication and execution are often all but instantaneous from the rack. He is really more neatly collected on the rack proper than on any other gait, except the canter; and though the rack is unrecognized as a School pace, I feel certain that I could convince any master of the Haute Ecole that within proper limits it is an addition, not a loss, to the education of a horse. What School-riders mean when they exclude the rack from School-paces is that a racker has rarely any other gait; and in the usual loose-jointed rack of the South a horse is certainly not well enough poised for use in School performances.
XLVIII.
To come back to our original text, then, it is quite impossible to say, as a whole, what seat is intrinsically the best, or what nation furnishes the best of riders. It appears to me that there is such a thing as anaturalseat. Such a seat is clearly shown on the frieze of the Parthenon, and in a less artistic way may be seen among any horsemen riding without stirrups. Although Xenophon has been misunderstood in this particular, I feel convinced that his description calls for what I understand to be the natural seat. And the best military riders make the nearest approach to this position. By military seat I by no means intend to convey the idea of a straight leg, forked radish style. That is not the military seat proper. It is only in spite of such a seat, or in spite of the short stirrup of the East, and because they are always in the saddle, that the Mexican gaucho and the Arab of the desert both ride as magnificently as they do. The best military rider should, and does, carry the leg as it naturally falls when sitting on his breech, not his crotch, on the bare back of a horse. The steeple-chaser, or cross-country rider, for perfectly satisfactory reasons, has a much shorter stirrup. But on the road, he should, and generally does, come back more nearly to the natural length. The main advantage in the very long stirrup which obtains among so many peoples lies in the possibility of sitting close on a trot with greater ease, and of using the lasso or whip, or in having a free hand for their sundry sports or duties. And a high pommel and cantle are advantageous in helping the rider preserve his seat when he might be dragged—not thrown—from it in some of his peculiar experiences. But the perfectly straight leg always bears a suggestion of the parting advice of the groom to a Sunday rider just leaving the stable: "Look straight between his hears, sir, and keep your balance, and youcan'tcome hoff." On the other hand, the advantages of an extremely short stirrup, such as prevails in the Orient, are very difficult to be understood at all.
The military riders of every civilized country, where enlistments are long enough, and where proper care is given to the instruction in equestrianism, are excellent. It would be curious indeed if men who devote their lives to the art should not be so. Some of our old army cavalry officers rode gloriously. Our volunteer cavalry, late in the war, rode strongly, though not always handsomely. During the past twenty years the severe work and long marches of our regular mounted troops have militated greatly against equestrianism as an art. Some of the most accomplished riders I have ever known have been in the United States Army. Philip Kearny, thatpreux chevalier, the "one-armed devil," was in every sense a superb rider. I have seen him with his cap in one hand, his empty sleeve blowing outward with his speed, and his sword dangling from his wrist, ride over a Virginia snake fence such as most of us would want to knock at least the top rail off.
"How he strode his brown steed! How we saw his blade brightenIn the one hand still left,—and the reins in his teeth!He laughed like a boy when the holidays heighten,But a soldier's glance shot from his visor beneath!"
"How he strode his brown steed! How we saw his blade brightenIn the one hand still left,—and the reins in his teeth!He laughed like a boy when the holidays heighten,But a soldier's glance shot from his visor beneath!"
"How he strode his brown steed! How we saw his blade brighten
In the one hand still left,—and the reins in his teeth!
He laughed like a boy when the holidays heighten,
But a soldier's glance shot from his visor beneath!"
And a man who could not follow him did not long remain upon his staff.
One of my lost opportunities occurred for such a reason during Pope's campaign, when General Kearny, who had dispatched right and left all his aides, beckoned to me at dusk one evening to ride out and draw the fire of some of the enemy's troops supposed to be on the edge of a wood, some half a mile or so distant. My own horse had been shot, and my equipments lost. I had captured an old farm-horse without a saddle, and had extemporized a rope bridle. The course lay athwart some open fields, with a number of fences still standing. My desire to do this work stood in inverse ratio to my steed's ability to second me. And no sooner had I ridden up and touched my cap for orders, than the general had gauged the poverty of my beast and rig, and speedily selected a better mounted messenger.
During the war, among the volunteer troops, we used in some of the divisions to organize steeple-chases during a long term of inactive operations, and good ones we frequently had; the old style steeple-chase over an unknown course being the fashion, and the steeple generally a prominent tree, at a distance of a couple of miles. Often the course was round a less distant tree and back again. Not a few good riders and horses were forthcoming to enter for such an event, and I have rarely seen better riding than there. An unknown course over Virginia fences, and through patches of Virginia second growth, especially after heavy rains, when mere gutters became rivers for a number of hours, and the ground was much like hasty-pudding, could be a test to try the best of horses and horsemen.
These are but isolated examples, instanced only as showing that every species of hard saddle work is very naturally apt to be cultivated among men whose duty keeps them in the saddle the better part of every day. And it is well known that English army officers are among the very best cross-country riders, and not a few have occupied the dignity of M. F. H., and done it credit. Surely such a rider, trained in the niceties of themanège, as well as experienced in riding to hounds, may fitly be placed at the head of the equestrian roll of honor.
After excluding professionals, then (and exceptional individuals), I am afraid I must brave criticism in calling the officers of civilized mounted troops distinctly the best class of riders. Next—perhaps you will say in the same category—comes that class in England which makes its one pleasure the prosecution of the most splendid of all sports, fox-hunting, and has reached perfection in the art. Excluding all riders who do not belong to the classes available for our imitation, there comes next,longo intervallo, the civilian rider everywhere.
It is impossible to draw any comparison between the above classes and even our own cowboys, whose peculiar duties and untamed mustangs prescribe their long leathers and horned pommel. Nor can the equatorial style be fairly contrasted with what meets the wants of the denizens of the civilized cities of the temperate zone.
In this country, the Southerner is the most constantly in the saddle, and a good rider in the sunny South is a thoroughly good rider. But I have often wondered at the number of poor ones it is possible to find in localities where everybody moves about in the saddle. Many men there, who ride all the time, seem to have acquired the trick of breaking every commandment in the decalogue of equitation. Using horses as a mere means of transportation seems sometimes to reduce the steed to a simple beast of burden, and equestrianism to the bald ability to sit in the saddle as you would in an ox-cart.
I think I have seen more graceful equestriennes in the South than anywhere else,—than even in England. But I must admit that all women who ride well possess such attractions for me as perhaps to warp my judgment in endeavoring to draw comparisons. Who but a Paris could have awarded the apple?
Although the Southern woman refuses to ride the trot, she has a proper substitute for it, and her seat is generally admirable. Though I greatly admire a square trot well ridden in a side-saddle, it is really the rise on this gait which makes so many crooked female riders among ourselves and our British cousins. This ought not to be so, but ladies are apt to resent too much severity in instruction, and without strict obedience to her master, a lady never learns to ride gracefully and stoutly. In the South, ladies ride habitually, and moreover a rack, single-foot, and canter are not only graceful, but straight-sitting paces for a woman.
It is not to-day risking much, however, to prophesy that within the lapse of little time our Eastern cities will boast as many clever Amazons as are to be found in the South. Who can contend that our Yankee women have not the intelligence, courage, vigor, and grace to rank with the riders of any clime?
XLIX.
And now, Master Tom, let me again impress upon you that I have been giving you only the most rudimentary idea of how to train your mare. By no means expect that Nelly will ever execute the traverse, pirouette, Spanish trot, or piaffer, let alone trot or gallop backwards, as these airs should be performed, by any such superficial education. But you will certainly find her more agreeable, more tractable, safer, and easier, and you will have both enjoyed the schooling. And I feel assured that having gone so far you will not stop short of the next step, the study and practice of the art in its true refinements. I may, moreover, safely assume that after you have once owned a School-trained horse, you will never again be content with what might be appropriately termed the "perfect saddle horse" of commerce.
Our roads part here,—yours towards the studious shades of Harvard, mine towards the rolling uplands of Chestnut Hill. Fare you well!
PATROCLUS AND PENELOPE
A CHAT IN THE SADDLE
BYTHEODORE AYRAULT DODGE
BREVET LIEUTENANT-COLONEL UNITED STATES ARMY (RETIRED LIST); AUTHOR OF "THE CAMPAIGN OF CHANCELLORSVILLE," "A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE CIVIL WAR," ETC., ETC.
ILLUSTRATED WITH FOURTEEN PHOTOTYPES OFTHE HORSE IN MOTION
Since—as it has been our fortune to be long engaged about horses—we consider that we have acquired some knowledge of horsemanship, we desire also to intimate to the younger part of our friends how we think that they may bestow their attention on horses to the best advantage.
Xenophonon Horsemanship
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANYBOSTON AND NEW YORK
PATROCLUS AND PENELOPE:
A Chat in the Saddle. ByTheodore Ayrault Dodge, Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, U.S.A. (Retired List), author of "The Campaign of Chancellorsville," "A Bird's-Eye View of the Civil War," etc. Illustrated with fourteen phototypes of the Horse in motion. In one volume, octavo, gilt top, half roan, $3.00.
Contents: Patroclus and I; Saddles and Seats; Patroclus on a Rack; The Rack and Single-Foot; Patroclus Trotting; Thoroughbred or Half-Bred; The Saddle Mania; Park-Riding; A Fine Horse not necessarily a Good Hack; Soldiers have Stout Seats; A Gate and a Brook; The Old Trooper; Instruction in Riding; Chilly Fox-Hunting; Is Soldier or Fox-Hunter the Better Rider? The School-Rider; Patroclus Happy; Photography versus Art; A One-Man Horse; Baucher's Favorite Saddle Horse; Patroclus sniffs a Friend; Riding-Schools and School-Riding; Is Schooling of Value? Manuals of Training; Result of Training; Qualities of the Horse; Dress, Saddles, and Bridles; Mounting; How to hold the Reins; How to begin Training; Penelope's Unrestrained Courage; Hints before beginning to train a Horse; Guiding by the Neck; What an Arched Neck means; Flexions of the Neck; Flexions of the Croup; The Canter; Leading with either Shoulder; The Horse's Natural Lead; The Best Way to teach the Lead; Change of Lead in Motion; Suggestions; How to begin Jumping; The Reins in the Jump; Odds and Ends of Leaping; Hunting and Road-Riding; Advantages of True Rack; Who is the Best Rider? Vale!
This book is written from an experience extending over thirty years,—in the English hunting-field, the Prussian army, the plains of the West, active service during the Civil War, and daily riding everywhere. The author has studied equestrianism as an art, and, although believing in the Haute Ecole of Baucher, enjoys with equal zest a ride to hounds or a gallop on the western prairies.
The experienced equestrian will be delighted by the author's breezy talk and thorough knowledge of his subject. The young horseman who may have purchased a colt just broken to harness can by the use of its hints make him as clever as Patroclus. Even the man who rides but a dozen times a year will be interested in the book, while the every-day reader will be charmed by its simplicity, geniality, and heartiness.
NOTICES OF THE PRESS.
The reader must feel that he is in distinctively good company. It is a running commentary on saddle-riding, and gives the reader much the same advantages he would have from a season's riding in company with a gentleman who has ridden in all countries, on all sorts of animals, and under all sorts of conditions…. One of the most attractive of recent books.—Boston Advertiser.
We all love Isaak Walton's talks about fish or John Burroughs's essays on birds; in the same spirit is this delightful book of Col. Dodge's…. It is a familiar chat of a man who knows all about horsemanship and can tell you how to mount or ride, what saddle or bridle to use, and, at the same time, touch upon life in the saddle with words which will make your blood tingle.—Saturday Evening Gazette(Boston).
It consists of a series of essay-like chapters written in a lively, chatty, conversational manner which makes it charming reading. The advice is full of hints and suggestions to the experienced horseman as well as of instructions of the utmost value to the new initiate in the equestrian art. We are in sympathy with the author before the first page is turned.—Yale Literary Magazine(New Haven).
The volume consists of a most charming series of chats about horses and horsemanship by a man who is thoroughly in the spirit of his subject, and who is not a hidebound partisan of any school of equestrianism, holding to the catholic belief that there are good riders in every land and in every species of saddle.—Army and Navy Journal(New York).
It abounds in excellent suggestions, the fruit of sound experience, accurate observations, and good common sense. It is an excellent book for the amateur. Withal it is told in a pleasant, easy way, as if it had been written in the saddle instead of at the desk.—Christian Register(Boston).
Col. Dodge combines to an altogether uncommon degree the merit of a close acquaintance with and real enthusiasm in his subject, and the quality of a trained literarian. The aspiring equestrian will gain instruction from the lips of a masterly instructor.—Christian Union(New York).
Col. Dodge has given the beginner in the art of horsemanship the best possible introduction to his pleasurable task. The author has had a much wider store of practical experience in horsemanship than his predecessors in this field of instruction.—New York Evening Post.
The practical horseman cannot fail to admire the firm, easy seat which the beginner will do well to copy. "Patroclus" is ably described, and, if up to what is said of him, must be a gem of the first water.—New York Times.
One who has had some experience in the saddle will derive from it the same sort of profit and entertainment which might be expected from an accomplished, observant, clear-headed, and good-natured companion on the road.—New York Tribune.
Col. Dodge rode his horse at the time the photographs were taken, and his skill in horsemanship is exhibited by a seat that was undisturbed by even the most violent exertions of his steed.—Sporting and Dramatic News(London).
His horse "Patroclus" is his hero, his mare "Penelope" his heroine, and the adventures undertaken with the aid of these two good animals make a story which will fire the blood of every reader.—Brooklyn Union.
Col. Dodge has succeeded in giving much excellent advice on the management of the horse, while at the same time holding the reader's attention by the interest of the narrative.—Herald-Crimson(Cambridge).
The beginner who will follow the excellent and simple rules of training given by our author will be sure to win success in the art and a great deal of pleasure by the way.—The Nation(New York).
Considerable as is the space allotted to jumping, it is not too great in view of the popularity of cross-country riding. We find in it nothing to criticise.—Philadelphia Record.
Written in a pleasant, sympathetic vein and in almost conversational form, it has an abundance of keen hints and graceful thoughts on horseback riding as an art.—Cincinnati Commercial Gazette.
He covers the whole ground of good horsemanship, not as an amateur or theorist, but as one who knows all the facts with which he deals.—San Francisco Chronicle.
Col. Dodge is an expert in all the finesse and paraphernalia of horses and horseback-riding…. The advice is sound and simple and very direct.—The Critic(New York).
The chapters on the training of horse and rider are full of sound information, clearly stated, and practical to the last.—Journal of Military Service Institution(New York).
A lover of horses will find in this volume a book which will give him unlimited pleasure.—The Book-Buyer(New York).
This book will be given an enthusiastic welcome by all lovers of equestrianism.—Chicago Journal.
The hearty animal spirits which gallop through its pages are catching.—New York Mail and Express.
Col. Dodge is a charming teacher.—Boston Herald.
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY,Publishers,Boston and New York.