A horse struggling to climb out of the ditch where it has fallen, to join its thrown rider. Other horses refusing the ditch in the background.Page 32.
I have here endeavoured to describe the different methods of coercion by which two opposite natures may be induced to exert themselves on our behalf in the chase. Every horse inclines, more or less, to one or other extreme I have cited as an example. A perfect hunter has preserved the good qualities of each without the faults, but how many perfect hunters do any of us ride in our lives? The chestnut is as fast as the wind, stout and honest, a safe and gallant fencer, but too light a mouth makes him difficult to handle at blind and cramped places; the bay can leap like a deer, and climb like a goat, invincible at doubles, and unrivalled at rails, but, as bold Lord Cardigan said of an equally accomplished animal, “it takes him a long time to getfrom one bit of timber to another!” While the brown, even faster than the chestnut, even safer than the bay, would be the best, as he is the pleasantest hunter in the world—only nothing will induce him to go near a brook!
It is only by exertion of a skill that is the embodiment of thought in action, by application of a science founded on reason, experience and analogy, that we can approach perfection in our noble four-footed friend. Common-sense will do much, kindness more, coercion very little, yet we are not to forget that man is the master; that the hand, however light, must be strong, the heel, however lively, must be resolute; and that when persuasion, best of all inducements, seems to fail, we must not shrink from the timely application of force.
Thelate Mr. Maxse, celebrated some fifty years ago for a fineness of hand that enabled him to cross Leicestershire with fewer falls than any other sportsman of fifteen stone who rode equally straight, used to profess much comical impatience with the insensibility of his servants to this useful quality. He was once seen explaining what he meant to his coachman with a silk-handkerchief passed round a post.
“Pull at it!” said the master. “Does it pull at you?”
“Yes, sir,” answered the servant, grinning.
“Slack it off then. Does it pull at you now?”
“No, sir.”
“Well then, you double-distilled fool, can’t you see that your horses are like that post? If you don’t pull atthemthey won’t pull atyou!”
Now it seems to me that in riding and driving also, what we want to teach our horses is, that when we pull at them they arenotto pull at us, and this understanding is only to be attained by a delicacy of touch, a harmony of intention, and a give-and-take concord, that for lack of a better we express by the term “hand.” Like the fingering of a pianoforte, this desirable quality seems rather a gift than an acquirement, and its rarity has no doubt given rise to the multiplicity of inventions with which man’s ingenuity endeavours to supply the want of manual skill.
It was the theory of a celebrated Yorkshire sportsman, the well-known Mr. Fairfax, that “Every horse is a hunter if you don’t throw him down with the bridle!” and I have always understood his style of riding was in perfect accordance with this daring profession of faith. The instrument, however, though no doubt producing ten falls, where it prevents one, is in so far a necessary evil, that we are helpless without it, and when skilfully used in conjunction with legs, knees, and body by a consummate horseman, would seem to convey the man’s intentions to the beast through some subtle agency, mysterious and almost rapid as thought. It is impossible to define the nature of that sympathy which exists between a well-bitted horse and his rider, they seemactuated by a common impulse, and it is to promote or create this mutual understanding that so many remarkable conceits, generally painful, have been dignified with the name of bridles. In the saddle-room of any hunting-man may be found at least a dozen of these, but you will probably learn on inquiry, that three or four at most are all he keeps in use. It must be a stud of strangely-varying mouths and tempers which, the snaffle, gag, Pelham, and double-bridle are insufficient to humour and control.
As it seems from the oldest representations known of men on horseback, to have been the earliest in use, we will take the snaffle first.
This bit, the invention of common-sense going straight to its object, while lying easily on the tongue and bars of a horse’s mouth, and affording control without pain, is perfection of its kind. It causes no annoyance and consequently no alarm to the unbroken colt, champing and churning freely at the new plaything between his jaws; on it the highly trained charger bears pleasantly and lightly, to “change his leg,”—“passage”—or “shoulder in,” at the slightest inflection of a rider’s hand; the hunter leans against it for support in deep ground; and the race-horse allows it to hold him together at nearly full-speed withoutcontracting his stride, or by fighting with the restriction, wasting any of his gallop in the air. It answers its purpose admirablyso long as it remains in the proper place, but not a moment longer. Directly a horse by sticking out his nose can shift this pressure to his lips and teeth, it affords no more control than a halter. With head up, and mouth open, he can go how and where he will. In such a predicament only an experienced horseman has the skill to give him such an amount of liberty without license as cajoles him into dropping again to his bridle, before he breaks away. Once off at speed, with the conviction that he is master, however ludicrous in appearance, the affair is serious enough in fact.
Many centuries elapsed, and a good deal of unpleasant riding must have been endured, before the snaffle was supplemented with a martingale. Judging from the Elgin Marbles, this useful invention seems to have been wholly unknown to the Greeks. Though the men’s figures are perfect in seat and attitude through the whole of that spirited frieze which adorned the Parthenon, not one of their horses carries its head in the right place. The ancient Greek seems to have relied on strength rather than cunning, in his dealings with the noble animal, and though he sat down on itlike a workman, must have found considerable difficulty in guiding his beast the way he wanted to go.
But with a martingale, the most insubordinate soon discover that they cannot rid themselves of control. It keeps their heads down in a position that enables the bit to act on the mouth, and if they must needs pull, obliges them to pull against that most sensitive part called the bars. There is no escape—bend their necks they must, and to bend their necks means to acknowledge a master and do homage to the rider’s will.
It is a well-known fact, and I can attest it by my own experience, that atwistedsnaffle with a martingale will hold a runaway when every other bridle fails; but to guide or stop an animal by the exercise of bodily strength is not horsemanship, and to saw at its mouth for the purpose cannot be expected to promote that sympathy of desire and intention which we understand by the term.
If we look at the sporting prints of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers, as delineated, early in the present century, we observe that nine out of every ten hunters were ridden in plain snaffle bridles, and we ask ourselves if our progenitors bred more docile beasts, or were these drinkers of port wine, bolder, stronger, and better horsemen than their descendants. Withoutentering on the vexed question of comparative merit in hounds, hunters, pace, country and sport, at an interval of more than two generations, I think I can find a reason, and it seems to me simply this.
Most of these hunting pictures are representations of the chase in our midland counties, notably Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, then only partially inclosed; boundary fences of large properties were few and far between, straggling also, and ill-made-up, the high thorn hedges that now call forth so much bold and so much timid riding, either did not exist, or were of such tender growth as required protection by a low rail on each side, and a sportsman, with flying coat-tails, doubling these obstacles neatly, at his own pace, forms a favourite subject for the artist of the time. Twenty or thirty horsemen, at most, comprised the field; in such an expanse of free country there must have been plenty of room to ride, and we all know how soon a horse becomes amenable to control on a moor or an open down. The surface too was undrained, and a few furlongs bring the hardest puller to reason when he goes in over his fetlocks every stride. Hand and heel are the two great auxiliaries of the equestrian, but our grandfathers, I imagine, made less use of the bridle than the spur.
With increased facilities for locomotion, in the improvement of roads and coaches, hunting, always the English gentleman’s favourite pastime, became a fashion for every one who could afford to keep a horse, and men thought little of twelve hours spent in the mail on a dark winter’s night in order to meet hounds next day. The numbers attending a favourite fixture began to multiply, second horses were introduced, so that long before the use of railways scarlet coats mustered by tens as to-day by fifties, and thecrowd, as it is called, became a recognized impediment to the enjoyments of the day.
Meantime fences were growing in height and thickness; an improved system of farming subdivided the fields and partitioned them off for pastoral or agricultural purposes; the hunter was called upon to collect himself, and jump at short notice, with a frequency that roused his mettle to the utmost, and this too in a rush of his fellow-creatures, urging, jostling, crossing him in the first five minutes at every turn.
Under such conditions it became indispensable to have him in perfect control, and that excellent invention, the double-bridle, came into general use.
I suppose I need hardly explain to my reader that it loses none of the advantages belonging to the snaffle,while it gains in the powerful leverage of the curb a restraint few horses are resolute enough to defy. In skilful hands, varying, yet harmonising, the manipulation of both, as a musician plays treble and bass on the pianoforte, it would seem to connect the rider’s thought with the horse’s movement, as if an electric chain passed through wrist, and finger, and mouth, from the head of the one to the heart of the other. The bearing and touch of this instrument can be so varied as to admit of a continual change in the degree of liberty and control, of that give-and-take which is the whole secret of comfortable progression. While the bridoon or snaffle-rein is tightened, the horse may stretch his neck to the utmost, without losing that confidence in the moral support of his rider’s hand which is so encouraging to him if unaccompanied by pain. When the curb is brought into play, he bends his neck at its pressure to a position that brings his hind-legs under his own body and his rider’s weight, from which collected form alone can his greatest efforts be made. Have your curb-bit sufficiently powerful, if not high in theport, at any rate long in thecheek, your bridoon asthickas your saddler can be induced to send it. With the first you bring a horse’s head into the right place, with the second, if smooth andverythick, you keep it there, in perfect comfort to the animal, and consequently to yourself. A thin bridoon, and I have seen them mere wires, only cuts, chafes, and irritates, causing more pain and consequently more resistance, than the curb itself. I have already mentioned the fineness of Mr. Lovell’s hand (alas! that he has but one), and I was induced by this gentleman to try a plan of his own invention, which, with his delicate manipulation, he found to be a success. Instead of the usual bridoon, he rode with a double strap of leather, exactly the width of a bridle-rein, and twice its thickness, resting where the snaffle ordinarily lies, on the horse’s tongue and bars. With his touch it answered admirably, with mine, perhaps because I used the leather more roughly than the metal, it seemed the severer of the two. But a badly-broken horse, and half the hunters we ride have scarcely been taught their alphabet, will perhaps try to avoid the restraint of a curb by throwing his head up at the critical moment when you want to steady him for a difficulty. If you have a firm seat, perfectly independent of the bridle,—and do not be too sure of this, until you have tried the experiment of sitting a leap with nothing to hold on by—you may call in the assistance of the running-martingale, slipping yourcurb-rein, which should be made to unbuckle, through its rings. Yourcurb, I repeat, contrary to the usual practice, andnot your snaffle. I will soon explain why.
The horse has so docile a nature, that he would always rather do right than wrong, if he can only be taught to distinguish one from the other; therefore, have all your restrictive power on the same engine. Directly he gives to your hand, by affording him more liberty you show him that he has met your wishes, and done what you asked. If you put the martingale on your bridoon rein you can no longer indicate approval. To avoid its control he must lean on the discomfort of his curb, and it puzzles no less than it discourages him, to find that every effort to please you is met, one way or the other, by restraint. So much for his convenience; now for your own. I will suppose you are using the common hunting martingale, attached to the breast-plate of your saddle, not to its girths. Be careful that the rings are too small to slip over those of the curb-bit; you will be in an awkward predicament if, after rising at a fence, your horse in the moment that he tries to extend himself finds his nose tied down to his knees.
Neither must you shorten it too much at first;rather accustom your pupil gradually to its restraint, and remember that all horses are not shaped alike; some are so formed that they must needs carry their heads higher, and, as you choose to think, in a worse place than others. Tuition in all its branches cannot be too gradual, and nature, whether of man or beast, is less easily driven than led. The first consideration in riding is, no doubt, to make our horses do what we desire; but when this elementary object has been gained, it is of great importance to our comfort that they should accept our wishes as their own, persuaded that they exert themselves voluntarily in the service of their riders. For this it is essential to use such a bridle as they do not fear to meet, yet feel unwilling to disobey. Many high-couraged horses, with sensitive mouths, no uncommon combination, and often united to those propelling powers in hocks and quarters that are so valuable to a hunter, while they scorn restraint by the mild influence of the snaffle, fight tumultuously against the galling restriction of a curb. For these the scion of a noble family, that has produced many fine riders, invented a bridle, combining, as its enemies declare, the defects of both, to which he has given his name.
In England there seems a very general prejudiceagainst the Pelham, whereas in Ireland we see it in constant use. Like other bridles of a peculiar nature it is adapted for peculiar horses; and I have myself had three or four excellent hunters that would not be persuaded to go comfortably in anything else.
I need hardly explain the construction of a Pelham. It consists of a single bit, smooth and jointed, like a common snaffle, but prolonged from the rings on either side to a cheek, having a second rein attached, which acts, by means of a curb-chain round the lower jaw, in the same manner, though to a modified extent, as the curb-rein of the usual hunting double-bridle, to which it bears an outward resemblance, and of which it seems a mild and feeble imitation. I have never to this day made out whether or not a keen young sportsman was amusing himself at my expense, when, looking at my horse’s head thus equipped, he asked the simple question: “Do you find it a good plan to have your snaffle and curb all in one?” Ididfind it a good plan with that particular horse, and at the risk of appearing egotistical I will explain why, by narrating the circumstances under which I first discovered his merits, illustrating as they do the special advantages of this unpopular implement.
The animal in question, thoroughbred, and amongsthunters exceedingly speedy, was unused to jumping when I purchased him, and from his unaffected delight in their society, I imagine had never seen hounds. He was active, however, high-couraged, and only too willing to be in front; but with a nervous, excitable temperament, and every inclination to pull hard, he had also a highly sensitive mouth. The double-bridle in which he began his experiences annoyed him sadly; he bounced, fretted, made himself thoroughly disagreeable, and our first day was a pleasure to neither of us. Next time I bethought me of putting on a Pelham, and the effect of its greater liberty seemed so satisfactory that to enhance it, I took the curb-chain off altogether. I was in the act of pocketing the links, when a straight-necked fox broke covert, pointing for a beautiful grass country, and the hounds came pouring out with a burning scent, not five hundred yards from his brush. I remounted pretty quick, but my thoroughbred one—in racing language, “a good beginner”—was quicker yet, and my feet were hardly in the stirrups, ere he had settled to his stride, and was flying along in rather too close proximity to the pack. Happily, there was plenty of room, and the hounds ran unusually hard, for my horse fairly broke away with me in the first field, and although he allowed me by main force to steady him a little at his fences,during ten minutes at least I know who wasnotmaster! He calmed, however, before the end of the burst, which was a very brilliant gallop, over a practicable country, and when I sent him home at two o’clock, I felt satisfied I had a game, good horse, that would soon make a capital hunter.
Now I am persuaded our timelyescapadewas of the utmost service. It gave him confidence in his rider’s hand; which, with this light Pelham bridle he found could inflict on him no pain, and only directed him the way he delighted to go. On his next appearance in the hunting-field, he was not afraid to submit to a little more restraint, and so by degrees, though I am bound to admit, the process took more than one season, he became a steady, temperate conveyance, answering the powerful conventional double-bridle with no less docility than the most sedate of his stable companions. We have seen a great deal of fun together since, but never such a game of romps as our first!
Why are so many brilliant horses difficult to ride? It ought not to be so. The truest shape entails the truest balance, consequently the smoothest paces and the best mouth. The fault is neither of form nor temper, but originates, if truth must be told, in the prejudices of the breaker, who will not vary his system to meet therequirements of different pupils. The best hunters have necessarily great power behind the saddle, causing them to move with their hind-legs so well under them, that they will not, and indeed cannot lean on the rider’s hand. This the breaker calls “facing their bit,” and the shyer they seem of that instrument, the harder he pulls. Up go their heads to avoid the pain, till that effort of self-defence becomes a habit, and it takes weeks of patience and fine horsemanship to undo the effects of unnecessary ill-usage for an hour.
Eastern horses, being broke from the first in the severest possible bits, all acquire this trick of throwing their noses in the air; but as they have never learned to pull, for the Oriental prides himself on riding with a “finger,” you need only give them an easy bridle and a martingale to make them go quietly and pleasantly, with heads in the right place, delighted to find control not necessarily accompanied by pain.
And this indeed is the whole object of our numerous inventions. A light-mouthed horse steered by a good rider, will cross a country safely and satisfactorily in a Pelham bridle, with a running martingale on thelowerrein. It is only necessary to give him his head at his fences, that is to say, to let his mouth alone, the moment he leaves the ground. That the man he carries can holda horse up, while landing, I believe to be a fallacy, that he gives him every chance in a difficulty by sitting well back and not interfering with his efforts to recover himself, I know to be a fact. The rider cannot keep too quiet till the last moment, when his own knee touches the ground, then, the sooner he parts company the better, turning his face towards his horse if possible, so as not to lose sight of the falling mass, and, above all, holding the bridle in his hand.
The last precaution cannot be insisted on too strongly. Not to mention the solecism of being afoot in boots and breeches during a run, and the cruel tax we inflict on some brother sportsman, who, being too good a fellow to leave us in the lurch, rides his own horse furlongs out of his line to go and catch ours, there is the further consideration of personal safety to life and limb. That is a very false position in which a man finds himself, when the animal is on its legs again, who cannot clear his foot from the stirrup, and has let his horse’s head go!
I believe too that a tenacious grasp on the reins saves many a broken collar-bone, as it cants the rider’s body round in the act of falling, so that the cushion of muscle behind it, rather than the point of his shoulder, is the first place to touch the ground; and no one whohas ever been “pitched into” by a bigger boy at school can have forgotten that this part of the body takes punishment with the greatest impunity. But we are wandering from our subject. To hold on like grim death when down, seems an accomplishment little akin to the contents of a chapter professing to deal with the skilful use of the bridle.
The horse, except in peculiar cases, such as a stab with a sharp instrument, shrinks like other animals from pain. If he cannot avoid it in one way he will in another. When suffering under the pressure of his bit, he endeavours to escape the annoyance, according to the shape and setting on of his neck and shoulders, either by throwing his head up to the level of a rider’s eyes, or dashing it down between his own knees. The latter is by far the most pernicious manœuvre of the two, and to counteract it has been constructed the instrument we call “a gag.”
This is neither more nor less than another snaffle bit of which the head-stall and rein, instead of being separately attached to the rings, are in one piece running through a swivel, so that a leverage is obtained on the side of the mouth of such power as forces the horse’s head upwards to its proper level. In a gag and snaffle no horse can continue “boring,” as it is termedagainst his rider’s hand; in a gag and curb he is indeed a hard puller who will attempt to run away.
But with this bridle, adieu to all those delicacies of fingering which form the great charm of horsemanship, and are indeed the master touches of the art. A gag cannot be drawn gently through the mouth with hands parted and lowered on each side so as to “turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,” nor is the bull-headed beast that requires it one on which, without long and patient tuition, you may hope to “witch the world with noble horsemanship.” It is at best but a schoolmaster, and like the curbless Pelham in which my horse ran away with me, only a step in the right direction towards such willing obedience as we require. Something has been gained when our horse learns we have power to control him; much when he finds that power exerted for his own advantage.
I would ride mine in a chain-cable if by no other means I could make him understand that he must submit to my will, hoping always eventually to substitute for it a silken thread.
All bridles, by whatever names they may be called, are but the contrivances of a government that depends for authority on concealment of its weakness. Hard hands will inevitably make hard pullers, but to theanimal intellect a force still untested is a force not lightly to be defied. The loose rein argues confidence, and even the brute understands that confidence is an attribute of power.
Change your bridle over and over again, till you find one that suits your hand, rather, I should say, that suits your horse’s mouth. Do not, however, be too well satisfied with a first essay. He may go delightfully to-day in a bit that he will learn how to counteract by to-morrow. Nevertheless, a long step has been made in the right direction when he has carried you pleasantly if only for an hour. Should that period have been passed in following hounds, it is worth a whole week’s education under less exciting conditions. A horse becomes best acquainted with his rider in those situations that call forth most care and circumspection from both.
Broken ground, fords, morasses, dark nights, all tend to mutual good understanding, but forty minutes over an inclosed country establishes the partnership of man and beast on such relations of confidence as much subsequent indiscretion fails to efface. The same excitement that rouses his courage seems to sharpen his faculties and clear his brain. It is wonderful how soon he begins to understand your meaning as conveyedliterally from “hand to mouth,” how cautiously he picks his steps amongst stubs or rabbit-holes, when the loosened rein warns him he must look out for himself, how boldly he quickens his stride and collects his energies for the fence he is approaching, when he feels grip and grasp tighten on back and bridle, conscious that you mean to “catch hold of his head and send him at it!” while loving you all the better for this energy of yours that stimulates his own.
And now we come to a question admitting of no little discussion, inasmuch as those practitioners differ widely who are best capable of forming an opinion. The advocates of the loose rein, who though outnumbered at the covert-side, are not always in a minority when the hounds run, maintain that a hunter never acquits himself so well as while let completely alone; their adversaries, on the other hand, protest that the first principle of equitation, is to keep fast hold of your horse’s head at all times and under all circumstances. “You pull him into his fences,” argues Finger. “Youwill never pull him out of them,” answers Fist. “Get into a bucket and try to lift yourself by the handles!” rejoins Finger, quoting from an apposite illustration of Colonel Greenwood’s, as accomplished a horseman as his brother, also a colonel, whose fine handling I havealready mentioned. “A horse isn’t a bucket,” returns Fist, triumphantly; “why, directly you let his head go does he stop in a race, refuse a brook, or stumble when tired on the road?”
It is a thousand pities that he cannot tell us which of the two systems he prefers himself. We may argue from theory, but can only judge by practice; and must draw our inferences rather from personal experience than the subtlest reasoning of the schools.
Now if all horses were broke by such masters of the art as General Lawrenson and Mr. Mackenzie Greaves, riders who combine the strength and freedom of the hunting field with the scientific exercise of hands and limbs, as taught in thehaute école, so obedient would they become to our gestures, nay, to the inflection of our bodies, that they might be trusted over the strongest lordship in Leicestershire with their heads quite loose, or, for that matter, with no bridle at all. But equine education is usually conducted on a very different system to that of Monsieur Baucher, or either of the above-named gentlemen. From colthood horses have been taught to understand, paradoxically enough, that a dead pull against the jaws means, “Go on, and be hanged to you, till I alter the pressure as a hint for you to stop.”
It certainly seems common sense, that when we tug at a horse’s bridle he should oblige us by coming to a halt, yet, in his fast paces, we find the pull produces a precisely contrary effect; and for this habit, which during the process of breaking has become a second nature, we must make strong allowances, particularly in the hurry and excitement of crossing a country after a pack of hounds.
It has happened to most of us, no doubt, at some period to have owned a favourite, whose mouth was so fine, temper so perfect, courage so reliable, and who had so learned to accommodate pace and action to our lightest indications, that when thus mounted we felt we could go tit-tupping over a country with slackened rein and toe in stirrup, as if cantering in the Park. As we near our fence, a little more forbidding, perhaps, than common, every stride seems timed like clockwork, and, unwilling to interfere with such perfect mechanism, we drop our hand, trusting wholly in the honour of our horse. At the very last stride the traitor refuses, and whisks round. “Et tu brute!” we exclaim—“Areyoualso a brute?”—and catching him vigorously by the head, we ram him again at the obstacle to fly over it like a bird. Early associations had prevailed, and our stanch friend disappointed us,not from cowardice, temper, nor incapacity, but only from the influence of an education based on principles contrary to common sense.
The great art of horsemanship, then, is to find out what the animal requires of us, and to meet its wishes, even its prejudices, half-way. Cool with the rash, and daring with the cautious, it is wise to retain the semblance, at least, of a self-possession superior to casualties, and equal to any emergency, from a refusal to a fall. Though “give and take” is the very first principle of handling, too sudden a variation of pressure has a tendency to confuse and flurry a hunter, whether in the gallop or when collecting itself for the leap. If you have been holding a horse hard by the head, to let him go in the last stride is very apt to make him run into his fence; while, if you have been riding with a light hand and loosened rein, a “chuck under the chin” at an inopportune moment distracts his attention, and causes him to drop short. “How did you get your fall?” is a common question in the hunting-field. If the partner at one end of the bridle could speak, how often would he answer, “Through bad riding;” when the partner at the other dishonestly replies, “The brute didn’t jump high enough, or far enough, that was all.” It is well for the most brilliant reputations that thenoble animal is generous as he is brave, and silent as he is wise.
I have already observed there are many more kinds of bridles than those just mentioned. Major Dwyer’s, notably, of which the principle is an exact fitting of bridoon and curb-bits to the horse’s mouth, seems to give general satisfaction; and Lord Gardner, whose opinion none are likely to dispute, stamps it with his approval. I confess, however, to a preference for the old-fashioned double-bridles, such as are called respectively the Dunchurch, Nos. 1 and 2, being persuaded that these will meet the requirements of nine horses out of ten that have any business in the hunting-field. The first, very large, powerful, and of stronger leverage than the second, should be used with discretion, but, in good hands, is an instrument against which the most resolute puller, if he insists on fighting with it, must contend in vain. Thus tackled, and ridden by such a horseman as Mr. Angerstein, for instance, of Weeting, in Norfolk, I do not believe there are half-a-dozen hunters in England that could get the mastery. Whilst living in Northamptonshire I remember he owned a determined runaway, not inappropriately called “Hard Bargain,” that in this bridle he could turn and twist like a pony. I have no doubt he has not forgotten thehorse, nor a capital run from Misterton, in which, with his usual kindness, he lent him thus bridled to a friend.
I have seen horses go very pleasantly in what I believe is called the half-moon bit, of which the bridoon, having no joint, is shaped so as to take the curve of the animal’s mouth. I have never tried one, but the idea seems good, as based on the principle of comfort to the horse. When we can arrive at that essential, combined with power to the rider, we may congratulate ourselves on possessing the right bridle at last, and need have no scruple in putting the animal to its best pace, confident we can stop it at will.
We should never forget that the faster hounds run, the more desirable is it to have perfect control of our conveyance; and that a hunter of very moderate speed, easy to turn, and quick on its legs, will cross a country with more expedition than a race-horse that requires half a field to “go about;” and that we dare not extend lest, “with too much way on,” he should get completely out of our hand. Once past the gap you fancied, you will never find a place in the fence you like so well again.
“You may ride us,With one soft kiss, a thousand furlongs, ereWith spurs we heat an acre.”
SaysHermione, and indeed that gentle lady’s illustration equally applies to an inferior order of beings, from which also man derives much comfort and delight. It will admit of discussion whether the “armed heel,” with all its terrors, has not, on the race-course at least, lost more triumphs than it has won.
I have been told that Fordham, who seems to be first past the judges’ chair oftener than any jockey of the day, wholly repudiates “the tormentors,” arguing that they only make a horse shorten his stride, and “shut up,” to use an expressive term, instead of struggling gallantly home. Judging by analogy, it is easy to conceive that such may be the case. The tendency of thehuman frame seems certainly to contract rather than expand its muscles, with instinctive repugnance at the stab of a sharp instrument, or even the puncture of a thorn. It is not while receiving punishment but administering it that the prize-fighter opens his shoulders and lets out. There is no doubt that many horses, thoroughbred ones especially, will stop suddenly, even in their gallop, and resent by kicking an indiscreet application of the spurs. A determined rider who keeps them screwed in the animal’s flanks eventually gains the victory. But such triumphs of severity and main force are the last resource of an authority that ought never to be disputed, as springing less from fear than confidence and good-will.
It cannot be denied that there are many fools in the world, yet, regarding matters of opinion, the majority are generally right. A top-boot has an unfinished look without its appendage of shining steel; and, although some sportmen assure us they dispense with rowels, it is rare to find one so indifferent to appearances as not to wear spurs. There must be some good reason for this general adoption of an instrument that, from the days of chivalry, has been the very stamp and badge of a superiority which the man on horseback assumes over the man on foot. Let us weigh the arguments for andagainst this emblem of knighthood before we decide. In the riding-school, and particularly for military purposes, when the dragoon’s right hand is required for his weapon, these aids, as they are called, seem to enhance that pressure of the leg which acts on the horse’s quarters, as the rein on his forehand, bringing his whole body into the required position. Perhaps if the boot were totally unarmed much time might be lost in making his pupil understand the horseman’s wishes, but any one who has ridden a perfectly trained charger knows how much more accurately it answers to the leg than the heel, and how awkwardly a horse acquits himself that has been broke in very sharp spurs; every touch causing it to wince and swerve too far in the required direction, glancing off at a tangent, like a boat that is over ready in answering her helm. Patience and a light switch, I believe, would fulfil all the purposes of the spur, even in themanége; but delay is doubtless a drawback, and there are reasons for going the shortest way on occasion, even if it be not the smoothest and the best.
It is quite unnecessary, however, and even prejudicial, to have the rowels long and sharp. Nothing impedes tuition like fear; and fear in the animal creation is the offspring of pain.
Granted, then, that the spur may be applied advantageously in the school, let us see how far it is useful on the road or in the hunting-field.
We will start by supposing that you do not possess a really perfect hack; that desirable animal must, doubtless, exist somewhere, but, like Pegasus, is more often talked of than seen. Nevertheless, the roadster that carries you to business or pleasure is a sound, active, useful beast, with safe, quick action, good shoulders, of course, and a willing disposition, particularly when turned towards home. How often in a week do you touch it with the spurs? Once, perhaps, by some bridle-gate, craftily hung at precisely the angle which prevents your reaching its latch or hasp. And what is the result of this little display of vexation? Your hack gets flurried, sticks his nose in the air, refuses to back, and compels you at last to open the gate with your wrong hand, rubbing your knee against the post as he pushes through in unseemly haste, for fear of another prod. When late for dinner, or hurrying home to outstrip the coming shower, you may fondly imagine that but for “the persuaders” you would have been drenched to the skin; and, relating your adventures at the fire-side, will probably declare that “you stuck the spurs into him the last mile, andcame along as hard as he could drive.” But, if you were to visit him in the stable, you would probably find his flanks untouched, and would, I am sure, be pleased rather than disappointed at the discovery. Happily, not one man in ten knowshowto spur a horse, and the tenth is often the most unwilling to administer so severe a punishment.
Ladies, however, are not so merciful. Perhaps because they have but one, they use this stimulant liberally, and without compunction. From their seat, and shortness of stirrup, every kick tells home. Concealed under a riding-habit, these vigorous applications are unsuspected by lookers-on; and the unwary wonder why, in the streets of London or the Park, a ladies’ horse always appears to go in a lighter and livelier form than that of her male companion. “It’s a woman’s hand,” says the admiring pedestrian. “Not a bit of it,” answers the cynic who knows; “it’s a woman’s heel.”
But, however sparing you may be of the spurs in lane or bridle-road, you are tempted to ply them far too freely in the anxiety and excitement of the hunting-field. Have you ever noticed the appearance of a white horse at the conclusion of some merry gallop over a strongly fenced country? The pure conspicuouscolour tells sad tales, and the smooth, thin-skinned flanks are too often stained and plastered with red. Many bad horsemen spur their horses without meaning it; many worse, mean to spur their horses at every fence, anddo.
A Leicestershire notability, of the last generation once dubbed a rival with the expressive title of “a hard funker;” and the term, so happily applied, fully rendered what he meant. Of all riders “the hard funker” is the most unmerciful to his beast; at every turn he uses his spurs cruelly, not because he ishard, but because hefunks. Let us watch him crossing a country, observing his style as a warning rather than an example.
Hesitation and hurry are his principal faults, practised, with much impartiality, in alternate extremes. Though half-way across a field, he is still undecided where to get out. This vacillation communicates itself in electric sympathy to his horse, and both go wavering down to their fence, without the slightest idea what they mean to do when they arrive. Some ten strides off the rider makes up his mind, selecting, probably, an extremely awkward place, for no courage is so desperate as that which is founded on fear. Want of determination is now supplemented by excessive haste and,with incessant application of the spurs, his poor horse is hurried wildly at the leap. That it gets over without falling, as happens oftener than might be supposed, seems due to activity in the animal rather than sagacity in the rider, and a strong instinct of self-preservation in both; but such a process, repeated again and again during a gallop, even of twenty minutes, tells fearfully on wind and muscle, nor have many hunters sufficient powers of endurance to carry these exacting performers through a run.
Still the “h. f.” would be nothing without his spurs, and I grant that to him these instruments are indispensable, if he is to get from one field to another; but of what use are they to such men as Mr. Gilmour, Captain Coventry, Sir Frederic Johnston, Captain Boyce, Mr. Hugh Lowther, and a host more that I could name, who seem to glide over Leicestershire, and other strongly-fenced countries, as a bird glides through the air. Day after day, unless accidentally scored in a fall, you may look in vain for a spur-mark on their horses sides. Shoulders and quarters, indeed, are reddened by gashes from a hundred thorns; but the virgin spot, a handsbreadth behind the girths, is pure and stainless still. Yet not one of the gentlemen I have named will ride without the instrument he uses so rarely, ifat all; and they must cherish, therefore, some belief in its virtue, when called into play, strong enough to counterbalance its indisputable disadvantages—notably, the stabbing of a hunter’s side, when its rider’s foot is turned outwards by a stake or grower, and the tearing of its back or quarters in the struggle and confusion of a fall. There is one excellent reason that, perhaps, I may have overlooked. It is tiresome to answer the same question over and over again, and in a field of 200 sportsmen you are sure to be asked almost as many times, “Why don’t you wear spurs?” if you set appearances at defiance by coming into the hunting-field without them.
In my personal recollection I can only call to mind one man who systematically abjured so essential a finish to the horseman’s dress and equipment. This was Mr. Tomline of Leigh Lodge, a Leicestershire farmer and horse-dealer, well-known some thirty years ago as one of the finest riders and straightest goers that ever got into a saddle. His costume, indeed, was not of so careful a nature that want of completeness in any one particular could spoil the general effect. Healwayshunted in a rusty, worn pilot-jacket, drab breeches with strings untied, brown-topped boots, and a large ill-fitting hat, carrying in his hand a ground-ash plant,totally useless for opening a gate if he did not happen to jump it. Yet thus accoutred, and generally on a young one, so long as his horse’s condition lasted, he was sure to be in front, and, when the fences were rougher than common, with but two or three companions at most.
I have not yet forgotten the style in which I once saw him coax a four-year-old to jump a “bottom” under Launde, fortified by a high post and rail—down-hill—a bad take off—and almost a ravine on the far side! With his powerful grip and exquisite handling, he seemed to persuade the pupil that it was as willing as the master.
My own spurs were four inches long, and I was riding the best hunter in my stable, but I don’t think I would have had the same place for fifty pounds!
A paradox, like an Irishman’s bull, will sometimes convey our meaning more impressively than a logical statement. It seems paradoxical, yet I believe it is sound sense to say that no man should arm his heels with spurs unless he is so good a rider as to be sure they shall not touch his horse. To punish him with them involuntarily is, of course, like any other blunder totally inadmissible, but when applied with intention, they should be used sparingly and only as a lastresource. That thereareoccasions on which they rouse a horse’s energies for a momentary effort, I am disposed to admit less from my own experience than the opinion of those for whose practical knowledge in all such matters I have the greatest respect. Both the Messrs. Coventry, in common with other first-rate steeple-chase riders, advocate their use on rare occasions and under peculiar circumstances. Poor Jem Mason never went hunting without them, and would not, I think, have hesitated to apply them pretty freely if required, but then these could all spur their horses in the right place, leaning back the while and altering in no way the force and bearing of hand or seat. Most men, on the contrary, stoop forward and let their horses’ heads go when engaged in this method of compulsion, and even if their heelsdoreach the mark, by no means a certainty, gain but little with the rowels compared to all they lose with the reins.
There is no fault in a hunter so annoying to a man whose heart is in the sport as a tendencyto refuse. It utterly defeats the timid and damps the courage of the bold, while even to him whoridesthat he may hunt rather thanhuntsthat he mayride, it is intensely provoking, as he is apt to lose by it that start which is so invaluable in a quick thing, and, when a large fieldare all struggling for the same object, so difficult to regain. This perversity of disposition too, is very apt to be displayed at some fence that will not admit of half-measures, such as a rail low enough to jump, but too strong to break, or a ditch so wide and deep that it must not be attempted as a standing leap. In these cases a vigorous dig with the spurs at the last moment will sometimes have an excellent effect. But it must not be trusted as an unfailing remedy. Nearly as many hunters will resent so broad a hint, by stopping short, and turning restive, as will spring generously forward, and make a sudden effort in answer to the appeal. For this, as for every other requirement of equitation, much depends on an insight into his character, whom an enthusiastic friend of mine designates “the bolder and wiser animal of the two.”
Few men go out hunting with the expectation of encountering more than one or two falls in the best of runs, although the score sometimes increases very rapidly, when a good and gallant horse is getting tired towards the finish. Twenty “croppers” in a season, if he is well-mounted, seems a high average for the most determined of bruisers, but a man, whom circumstances impel to ride whatever he can lay hands on, must take into consideration how he can best rise from the groundunhurt with no less forethought than he asks his way to the meet or inquires into the condition of his mount. To such a bold rider the spur may seem an indispensable article, but he must remember that even if its application should save him on occasion, which I am not altogether prepared to admit, the appendage itself is most inconvenient when down. I cannot remember a single instance of a man’s foot remaining fixed in the stirrup who was riding without spurs. I do not mean to say such a catastrophe is impossible, but I have good reason to know that the buckle on the instep, which when brightly polished imparts such a finish to the lustrous wrinkles of a well-made boot, is extremely apt to catch in the angle of the stirrup iron, and hold us fast at the very moment when it is most important to our safety we should be free.
I have headed this chapter “The Abuse of the Spur,” because I hold that implement of horsemanship to be in general most unmercifully abused, so much so that I believe it would be far better for the majority of horses, and riders too, if it had never come into vogue. The perfect equestrian may be trusted indeed with rowels sharp and long as those that jingle at the Mexican’s heels on his boundless prairies, but, as in thedays of chivalry, these ornaments should be won by prowess to be worn with honour; and I firmly believe that nine out of every ten men who come out hunting would be better and more safely carried if they left their spurs at home.
Whatis it? Intellect, nerve, sympathy, confidence, skill? None of these can be said to constitute this quality; rather it is a combination of all, with something superinduced that can only be called a magnetic affinity between the aggressive spirit of man and the ductile nature of the beast.
“He spurred the old horse, andhe held him tight,And leaped him out over the wall,”
says Kingsley, in his stirring ballad of “The Knight’s Last Leap at Alten-ahr;” and Kingsley, an excellent rider himself, thus described exactly how the animal should have been put at its formidable fence. Most poets would have let their horse’s head go—the loose rein is a favourite method of making play in literature—and a fatal refusal must have been the result. The German Knight, however, whose past life seems to havebeen no less disreputable than his end was tragic, had not
“Lived by the saddle for years a score,”
to fail in his horsemanship at the finish, and so, when he came to jump his last fence, negotiated it with no less skill than daring—grim, quiet, resolute, strong of seat, and firm of hand. The latter quality seems, however, much the rarer of the two. For ten men who can stick to the saddle like Centaurs you will hardly find one gifted with that nicety of touch which horses so willingly obey, and which, if not inborn, seems as difficult to acquire by practice as the draughtsman’s eye for outline, or the musician’s ear for sound. Attention, reflection, painstaking, and common sense, can, nevertheless, do much; and, if the brain will only take the trouble to think, the clumsiest fingers that ever mismanaged a bridle may be taught in time to humour it like a silken thread.
I have been told, though I never tried the experiment, that if you take bold chanticleer from his perch, and, placing his bill on a table, draw from it a line of chalk by candle-light, the poor dazed fowl makes no attempt to stir from this imaginary bondage, persuaded that it is secured by a cord it has not strength enough to break. We should never get on horsebackwithout remembering this unaccountable illusion; our control by means of the bridle is, in reality, little more substantial than the chalk-line that seems to keep the bird in durance. It should be our first consideration so to manage the rein we handle as never to give our horse the opportunity of discovering our weakness and his own strength.
How is this to be effected? By letting his head go, and allowing him to carry us where he will? Certainly not, or we should have no need for the bridle at all. By pulling at him, then, with main strength, and trying the muscular power of our arms against that of his shoulders and neck? Comparing these relative forces again, we are constrained to answer, Certainly not; the art of control is essentially founded on compromise. In riding, as in diplomacy, we must always be ready to give an inch that we may take an ell. The first principle of horsemanship is to make the animal believe we can rule its wildest mood; the next, to prevent, at any sacrifice, the submission of this plausible theory to proof. You get on a horse you have never seen before, improperly bitted, we may fairly suppose, for few men would think of wasting as many seconds on their bridle as they devote minutes to their boots and breeches. You infer, from his wild eye and restless earthat he is “a bit of a romp;” and you observe, with some concern, that surrounding circumstances, a race, a review, a coursing-meeting, or a sure find, it matters little which, are likely to rouse all the tumultuous propensities of his nature. Obviously it would be exceedingly bad policy to have the slightest misunderstanding. The stone of Sisyphus gathered impetus less rapidly than does a horse who is getting the better of his rider; and John Gilpin was not the first equestrian, by a good many, for whom
“The trot became a gallop soon,In spite of curb and rein.”
“I am the owner, I wish I could say themaster, of the four best hunters I ever had in my life,” wrote one of the finest horsemen in Europe to a brother proficient in the art; and although so frank an avowal would have seemed less surprising from an inferior performer, his friend, who was also in the habit of riding anything, anywhere, and over everything, doubtless understood perfectly what he meant.
Now in equitation there can be no divided empire; and the horse will most assuredly be master if the man is not. In the interests of good government, then, beware how you let your authority literally slip throughyour fingers, for, once lost, it will not easily be regained.
Draw your reins gently to an equal length, and ascertain the precise bearing on your horse’s mouth that seems, while he is yet in a walk, to influence his action without offending his sensitiveness. But this cannot be accomplished with the hands alone; these members, though supposed to be the prime agents of control, will do little without the assistance of legs and knees pressing the sides and flanks of the animal, so as to urge him against the touch of his bit, from which he will probably show a tendency to recoil, and, as it is roughly called, “forcing him into his bridle.”
The absence of this leg-power is an incalculable disadvantage to ladies, and affords the strongest reason, amongst many, why they should be mounted only on temperate and perfectly broken horses. How much oftener would they come to grief but that their seat compels them to ride with such long reins as insure light hands, and that their finer sympathy seems fully understood and gratefully appreciated by the most sympathetic of all the brute creation!
The style adopted by good horsewomen, especially in crossing a country, has in it much to be admired, something, also, to be deprecated and deplored. Theyallow their horses plenty of liberty, and certainly interfere but little with their heads, even at the greatest emergencies; but their ideas of pace are unreasonably liberal, and they are too apt to “chance it” at the fences, encouraging with voice and whip the haste that in the last few strides it is judicious to repress. It seems to me they are safer in a “bank-and-ditch” country than amongst the high strong fences of the grazing districts, where a horse must be roused and held together that he may jump well up in the air, and extend himself afterwards, so as to cover the wide “uncertainties” he may find on the landing side. For a bank he is pretty sure to collect himself without troubling his rider; and this is, perhaps, why Irishmen, as a general rule, use such light bridles.
Now, a woman cannot possibly bring her horse up to a high staked-and-bound fence, out of deep ground, with the strength and resolution of a man, whose very grip in the saddle seems to extort from the animal its utmost energies. Half measures are fatal in a difficulty, and, as she seems unable to interfere with good effect she is wise to let it alone.
We may learn from her, however, one of the most effective secrets of the whole art, and that is, to ride with long reins. “Always give them plenty of rope,”said poor Jem Mason, when instructing a beginner; and he certainly practised what he preached. I have seen his hands carried so high as to be level with his elbows,but his horse’s head was always in the right place; and to this must be attributed the fact that, while he rode to hounds straighter than anybody else, he got comparatively few falls. A man with long reins not only affords his horse greater liberty at his fences, but allows him every chance of recovery should he get into difficulties on landing, the rider not being pulled with a jerk on the animal’s neck and shoulders, so as to throw both of them down, when they ought to have got off with a scramble.
Let us return to the horse you have lately mounted, not without certain misgivings that he may be tempted to insubordination under the excitement of tumult, rivalry, or noise. When you have discovered the amount of repression, probably very slight, that he accepts without resentment, at a walk, increase your pace gradually, still with your legs keeping him well into his bridle, carrying your hands low down on his withers, and, if you take my advice, with a rein in each. You will find this method affords you great control of your horse’s head, and enables you, by drawing the bit through his mouth, to counteract anyarrangement on his part for a dead pull, which could have but one result. Should you, moreover, find it necessary to jump, you can thus hold him perfectly straight at his fences, so that he must either decline altogether or go exactlywhere you put him. Young, headstrong horses are exceedingly apt to swerve from the place selected for them, and to rise sideways at some strong bit of timber, or impracticable part of a bullfinch; and this is a most dangerous experiment, causing the worst kind of falls to which the sportsman is liable.
Riding thus two-handed, you will probably find your new acquaintance “bends” to you in his canter better than in his trot, and if so, you may safely push him to a gallop, taking great care, however, not to let him extend himself too much. When he goes on his shoulders, he becomes a free agent; so long as his haunches are under him, you can keep him, as it is called, “in your hand.”
There is considerable scope for thought in this exercise of manual skill, and it is always wise to save labour of body by use of brain. Take care then, to have your front clear, so that your horse may flatter himself he is leading his comrades, when he will not give you half so much trouble to retain him in reasonable bounds.Strategy is here required no less than tactics, and horsemanship even as regards the bridle, is quite as much a matter of head as hand. If you are out hunting, and have got thus far on good terms, you will probably now be tempted to indulge in a leap. We cannot, unfortunately, select these obstacles exactly as we wish; it is quite possible your first fence may be high, strong, and awkward, with every probability of a fall. Take your horse at it quietly, but resolutely, in a canter, remembering that the quicker andshorterhis strides, while gatheringimpetus, the greater effort he can make when he makes his spring. Above all, measure with your eye, and endeavour to show him by the clip of your thighs, and the sway of your body, exactly where he should take off. On this important point depends, almost entirely, the success of your leap. Half a stride means some six or seven feet; to leave the ground that much too soon adds the width of a fair-sized ditch to his task, and if the sum total prove too much for him you cannot be surprised at the result. This is, I think, one of the most important points in horsemanship as applied to riding across a country. It is a detail in which Lord Wilton particularly excels, and although so good a huntsman must despise a compliment to his mere riding, I cannot refrain from mentioning Tom Firr, as another proficientwho possesses this enviable knack in an extraordinary degree.
Many of us can remember “Cap” Tomline, a professional “rough rider,” living at or near Billesdon, within the last twenty years, as fine a horseman as his namesake, whom I have already mentioned, and a somewhat lighter weight. For one sovereign, “Cap,” as we used to call him, was delighted to ride anybody’s horse under any circumstances, over, or into any kind of fence the owner chose to point out. After going brilliantly through a run, I have seen him, to my mind most injudiciously, desired to lark home alongside, while we watched his performance from the road. He was particularly fond of timber, and notwithstanding that his horse was usually rash, inexperienced, or bad-tempered, otherwise he would not have been riding him, I can call to mind very few occasions on which I saw him down. One unusually open winter, when he hunted five and six days a week from October to April, he told me he had only fifteen falls, and that taking the seasons as they came, thirteen was about his average. Nor was he a very light-weight—spare, lengthy, and muscular, he turned twelve stone in his hunting clothes, which were by no means of costly material. Horses rarely refused with him, and though they often had ascramble for it, as seldom fell, but under his method of riding, sitting well down in the saddle, with the reins in both hands, they never took off wrong, and in this lay the great secret of his superiority. When I knew him he was an exceedingly temperate man; for many years I believe he drank only water, and he eschewed tobacco in every form. “The reason you gentlemen have suchbad nerves,” he said to me, jogging home to Melton one evening in the dusk that always meets us about Somerby, “is because you smoke so much. It turns your brains to a kind of vapour!” the inference was startling, I thought, and not complimentary, but there might be some truth in it nevertheless.
We have put off a great deal of time at our first fence, let us do it without a fall, if we can.
When a hunter’s quarters are under him in taking off, he has them ready to help him over any unforeseen difficulty that may confront him on the other side. Should there be a bank from which he can get a purchase for a second effort, he will poise himself on it lightly as a bird, or perhaps, dropping his hind-legs only, shoot himself well into the next field, with that delightful elasticity which, met by a corresponding action of his rider’s loins, imparts to the horseman such sensations of confidence and dexterity as are felt by somebuoyant swimmer, wafted home on the roll of an incoming wave. Strong hocks and thighs, a mutual predilection for the chase, a bold heart between the saddle-flaps, another under the waistcoat, and a pair of light hands, form a combination that few fences after Christmas are strong enough or blind enough to put down.
And now please not to forget that soundest of maxims, applicable to all affairs alike by land or sea—“While she lies her course, let the ship steer herself.” If your horse is going to his own satisfaction, do not be too particular that he should go entirely to yours. So long as you can steady him, never mind that he carries his head a little up or a little down. If he shakes it you know you have got him, and can pull him off in a hundred yards. Keep your hands quiet and not too low. It is a well-known fact, of which, however, many draughtsmen seem ignorant, that the horse in action never puts his fore-feet beyond his nose. You need only watch the finish of a race to be satisfied of this, and indeed the Derby winner in his supreme effort is almost as straight as an old-fashioned frigate, from stem to stern, while a line dropped perpendicularly from his muzzle would exactly touch the tips of his toes. Now, if your hands are on each side of yourhorse’s withers, you make him bend his neck so much as to contract his stride within three-quarter speed, whereas when you carry them about the level of your own hips, and nearly as far back, he has enough freedom of head to extend himself without getting beyond your control, and room besides to look about him, of which be sure he will avail himself for your mutual advantage.
I have ridden hunters that obviously found great pleasure in watching hounds, and, except to measure their fences, would never take their eyes off the pack from field to field, so long as we could keep it in sight. These animals too, were, invariably fine jumpers, free, generous, light-hearted, and as wise as they were bold.
I heard a very superior performer once remark that he not only rode every horse differently, but he rode the same horse differently at every fence.
All I can say is, he used to ride them all in the same place, well up with the hounds, but I think I understand what he meant. He had his system of course, like every other master of the art, but it admitted of endless variations according to circumstances and the exigencies of the case. No man, I conclude, rides so fast at a wall as a brook, though he takes equal pains with his handling in both cases, if in a different way, nor wouldhe deny a half-tired animal that support, amounting even to a dead pull, which might cause a hunter fresh out of his stable to imagine his utmost exertions were required forthwith. Nevertheless, whether “lobbing along” through deep ground at the punishing period, when we wish our fun was over, or fingering a rash one delicately for his first fence, a stile, we will say, downhill with a bad take-off, when we could almost wish it had not begun, we equally require such a combination of skill, science, and sagacity, or rather common-sense, as goes by the name of “hand.” When the player possesses this quality in perfection it is wonderful how much can be done with the instrument of which he holds the strings. I remember seeing the Reverend John Bower, an extraordinarily fine rider of the last generation, hand his horse over an ugly iron-bound stile, on to some stepping-stones, with a drop of six or seven feet, into a Leicestershire lane, as calmly as if the animal had been a lady whom he was taking out for a walk. He pulled it back into a trot, sitting very close and quiet, with his hand raised two or three inches above the withers, and I can still recall, as if I had seen it yesterday, the curve of neck and quarters, as, gently mouthing the bit, that well-broken hunter poised lightly for its spring, and landing in the same collected form, picked its waydaintily, step by step, down the declivity, like a cat. There was a large field out, but though Leicestershire then, as now, had no lack of bold and jealous riders, who could use heads, hands, and beyond all, their heels, nobody followed him, and I think the attempt was better left alone.
Another clergyman of our own day, whose name I forbear mentioning, because I think he would dislike it for professional reasons, has the finest bridle-hand of any one I know. “You good man,” I once heard a foreigner observe to this gentleman, in allusion to his bold style of riding; “it no matter if you break your neck!” And although I cannot look on the loss of such valuable lives from the same point of view as this Continental moralist, I may be permitted to regret the present scarcity of clergymen in the hunting-field. It redounds greatly to their credit, for we know how many of them deny themselves a harmless pleasure rather than offend “the weaker brethren,” but what a dog in the manger must the weaker brother be!
I have never heard that these “hunting parsons,” as they are called, neglect the smallest detail of duty to indulge in their favourite sport, but when theydocome out you may be sure to see them in the front rank. Can it be that the weaker brother is jealous of hispastor’s superiority in the saddle? I hope not. At any rate it seems unfair to cavil at the enjoyment by another of the pursuit we affect ourselves. Let us show more even-handed justice, if not more charity, and endeavour at least to follow the good man’s example in the parish, though we are afraid to ride his line across the fields.
It would be endless to enter on all the different styles of horsemanship in which fine hands are of the utmost utility. On the race-course, for instance, it seems to an outsider that the whole performance of the jockey is merely a dead pull from end to end. But only watch the lightest urchin that is flung on a two-year-old to scramble home five furlongs as fast as ever he can come; you will soon be satisfied that even in these tumultuous flights there is room for the display of judgment, patience, though briefly tried, and manual skill. The same art is exercised on the light smooth snaffle, held in tenacious grasp, that causes the heavily-bitted charger to dance and “passage” in the school. It differs only in direction and degree. As much dexterity is required to prevent some playful flyer recently put in training from breaking out in a game of romps, when he ought to be minding his business in “the string” as to call forth the well-drilled efforts of a war-horse,answering wrist and leg with disciplined activity, ready to “rein back,” “pass,” “wheel,”—
“And high curvet that not in vain,The sword-sway may descend amainOn foeman’s casque below.”
Chifney, the great jockey of his day, wrote an elaborate treatise on handling, laying down the somewhat untenable position, that even a racehorse should be held as if with a silken thread.
I have noticed, too, that our best steeplechase riders have particularly fine hands when crossing a country with hounds; nor does their professional practice seem to make them over-hasty at their fences, when there is time to do these with deliberation. I imagine that to ride a steeplechase well, over a strong line, is the highest possible test of what we may call “all-round” horsemanship. My own experience in the silk jacket has been of the slightest; and I confess that, like Falstaff with his reasons, I never fancied being rattled quite so fast at my fences “on compulsion.”