Nothing can be more detrimental to the grace of a lady’s appearance on horseback, than a bad position: a recent author says, it is a sight that would spoil the finest landscape in the world. What can be much more ridiculous, than the appearance of a female, whose whole frame, through mal-position, seems to be the sport of every movement of the horse? If the lady be not mistress of her seat, and be unable to maintain a proper position of her limbs and body, so soon as her horse starts into a trot, she runs the risk of being tossed about on the saddle, like the Halcyon of the poets in her frail nest,—
“Floating upon the boisterous rude sea.”
If the animal should canter, his fair rider’s head will be jerked to and fro as “a vexed weathercock;” her drapery will be blown about, instead of falling gracefully around her; and her elbows rise and fall, or, as it were, flap up and down like the pinions of an awkward nestling endeavouring to fly. To avoid such disagreeable similes being applied to her, the young lady, who aspires to be a good rider, should, even from her first lesson in the art, strive to obtain a proper deportment on the saddle. She ought to be correct, without seeming stiff or formal: and easy, without appearing slovenly. The position we have described, subject to occasional variations, will be found, by experience, to be the most natural and graceful mode of sitting a horse:—it is easy to the rider and her steed; and enables the former to govern the actions of the latter so effectually, in all ordinary cases, as to produce that harmony of motion, which is so much and so deservedly admired.
The balance is conducive to the ease, elegance, and security of the rider:—it consists in a foreknowledge of the direction which any given motion of the horse will impart to the body, and a ready adaptation of the whole frame to the proper position, before the animal has completed his change of attitude or action;—it is that disposition of the person, in accordance with the movements of the horse, which prevents it from an undue inclination, forward or backward, to the right or to the left.
By the direction and motion of the horse’s legs the balance is governed. If the animal be either standing still, or merely walking straight-forward, the body should be preserved in the simple position which we have directed the lady to assume on taking her seat. Should it be necessary to apply the whip, so as to make the animal quicken his pace, or to pull him in suddenly, the body must be prepared to accommodate itself to the animal’s change of action. When going round a corner at a brisk pace, or riding in a circle, the body should lean back rather more than in the walking position: to the same extent that the horse bends inward, must the body lean in that direction. If a horse shy at any object, and either turn completely and suddenly round, or run on one side only, the body should, if possible, keep time with his movements, and adapt itself so as to turn or swerve with him; otherwise, the balance will be lost, and the rider be in danger of falling, on the side from which the animal starts. In no case, let it be remembered, should the rider endeavour to assist herself in preserving her balance, by pulling at the reins.
AIDS AND DEFENCES.
All such motions of the body, the hands, the legs, and the whip, as either indicate the rider’s wishes, or, in some degree, assist the horse to fulfil them, are, in the art of riding, denominated aids; and those movements of the rider which tend to save the animal from disuniting himself, or running into danger, may, properly enough, be classed under the same title: while such as act for the preservation of the rider, against the attempts of the horse, when headstrong or vicious, are termed defences.