Having gathered up the skirt, the lady should then carry her hands forward about eight or ten inches from her knees, and rest both her hands firmly on those of the assistant, who should raise them up well for the purpose. It remains only then for the lady to glide smoothly down from the saddle, and, slightly supported by the assistant, she will alight easily and gracefully on terra firma. Some riding masters have a fashion of taking a lady off her horse by placing both hands on her waist and allowing her to throw her weight forward upon them. Such a practice is outré, inelegant, and unsafe, because the lady is likely enough to throw more weight forward than the master anticipated, in which case both may come to the ground, to the great discomfiture of the fair equestrian.
CHAPTER VII.
The Trotting Lesson.
This, once thoroughly mastered, gives the pupil confidence and security on her horse, and is the great inductive step by which she learns the value of balance. Some years ago it was considered that if a lady could sit her horse gracefully at a walk, and securely at a canter, she had accomplished all that was correct or necessary in female equitation. Trotting was altogether ignored, for the simple reason that ladies found it extremely difficult to do, and impossible to find anybody who could help them out of their difficulty by teaching them the right way. In those days most of the riding masters were men who had been instructors in the cavalry. In that arm of the service, trotting according to regulation is quite a different thing to the easy rise and fall seat practised by civilians on horseback. It is a necessity in cavalry, in order to preserve the dressing in line, that a man should sit down in his saddle at a trot, and allow the horse to shake him fair up and down in it. If the rising seat were allowed, it would be impossible to preserve anything like dressing. This shake-up, or "bumping" seat, however, as men out of the army call it, is by no means so distressing as some people imagine, unless the horse is unusually rough in his action.
The reason is that the military trot is taught upon the principle of balance. The man sits fair down on his seat, and, keeping his knee forward and his heel well down, does not cling to the horse by muscular grasp; consequently the bumping, so terrific to the eye of the civilian, is scarcely felt by the soldier, and in continental armies, where rough trotting horses are exceptional, the motion or jolt is scarcely perceptible. There are a great many popular fallacies about military riding—as, for instance, that a dragoon rides with a very long stirrup; that his seat is insecure; that the bumping gives a horse a sore back; and that, except a sailor and a tailor, a dragoon officer is about the worst horseman to be found. This is not exactly the place to enter into any controversy on the subject; but I may as well observe at once, and I do so because I am sure the old soldiers are not altogether despised by the ladies, even in this non-military country, that all the foregoing are so many mistakes. A dragoon, any time within my memory, rode just the same length as a man does over a country—that is to say that, measuring the cavalry man's leather and iron by the length of his arm and hand, which is the right length for a civilian, you have exactly the cavalry regulation length. The stirrup of a lancer indeed is somewhat shorter than that used by most hunting men. Finally, an acquaintance with the habitués of such places as Melton would prove to unbelievers in the riding of cavalry officers that the names of most of the men who go to the front in the hunting-field, and keep there, are to be found in the "Army List." I have been tempted thus to digress by having referred to the military riding school, from which in former days, most, if not all, the riding masters who taught ladies came. Now, although I stand up (as in duty bound) for the military system of riding per se, it does not produce the right man to teach a woman to ride, if the experience of the preceptor has been acquired in the riding school only. Excellent as is our system (or, rather, the German system, for it is imported from the Prussian service), for making a man a first-class dragoon, as regards anything connected with a lady's seat or the principle of her balance, it is useless.
As regards her hands, or the application of the "aids" of the manége, it is highly beneficial, because nothing can be more clear or concise than the simple rules laid down in military equitation for the application of the "helps," by which a horse's easy movement is controlled and regulated. It was principally to the want of men who could teach a lady to ride, however, that the absence of a trotting in the side saddle was to be attributed "lang syne."
It is altogether different now. Riding masters took to riding across country, and their daughters took to it also, naturally. Awkward spills occurred; and long journeys home after hunting, all done at a canter, terribly shook the horse's legs and the temper of the head of the family. "Why the deuce can't you let your horse trot?" I once heard the worthy sire of a blooming girl of sixteen say to his daughter, who was pounding away on the hard road on the retour de chasse. "For God's sake let him trot, Carry. You'll hammer his legs all to pieces. Why don't you let him trot?" "Because, pa, he won't let me trot," was the unanswerable reply. True enough; Carry knew nothing about it, and there was nobody to tell her. She was riding on a saddle that fitted neither her nor her horse. She had no third crutch, and she had a slipper stirrup (that worst of abominations in ladies' saddlery). Looking back at those days, the only wonder to me is, how ladies managed to ride at all. That they did ride is certainly proof (if any were wanting) of their courage and perseverance under difficulties.
The necessity for trotting having become apparent as ladies took more to riding, it at length called the attention of one or two thoroughly practical men to the subject. The first of these, I believe, was the celebrated steeple race jockey, Dan Seffert, who had been a riding master in his early days, and who was equally at home in the manége or between the flags over a country.
The running made by Mr. Seffert was soon taken up by other first-class horsemen, among whom were Mr. Oldacre, and Mr. Allen, of Seymour-place. The third crutch was added to the side saddle, and numerous improvements effected in it, which rendered trotting not only practicable, but pleasant and easy to a lady, provided she was taught the right way. I believe we owe the third crutch and padded stirrup to Mr. Oldacre, a first-class judge of female equitation; but I am not quite certain upon this point. The saddle having been rendered practicable for the purpose, the next thing requisite was a comprehensible and simple set of rules, by which the lady could be taught to trot, without distressing either her horse or herself. To whom these rules owe their origin is immaterial; as to their efficiency, such as they are, I have found them highly so, and therefore beg leave to submit them to your readers.