Western Style of Gig Horse
With all formal ladies’ traps, plain square lamps are more appropriate, and round lamps belong rather
with sporting vehicles. Illustrations of a number of smartly appointed ladies’ traps will be found on [page 209].
The owner’s rain coat and storm gloves should be carried folded in the hood. The rubbers, comprising the rubber apron and groom’s rain coat and cover for his hat, should be folded and placed under the seat of the rumble.
CHAPTER XV
HINTS ON DRIVING
Regulate the pace by the distance that you have to go, and, whatever the distance, keep going at a steady pace—from seven to nine miles an hour is a good average—and it is a great mistake in long driving to go sometimes very fast and then try to balance it by going very slowly. In the old coaching days, when long distances were covered and the horses had to be kept in good condition, the general principle was to keep the horses going at about the same gait uphill and down, and this applies quite as much with a pair or a single horse. It is easier for a horse, and tires him less, to keep a steady gait than to walk up and down hill and then go very fast on the flat.
The most important thing about driving horses, especially for distance driving, is to find by experience their natural fast gait and then to keep them to it, and never to urge your horses beyond their natural gait, as nothing tires them so quickly. On the other hand, it tires a high-spirited horse almost as much to keep holding him back from his natural gait. Horses, after they have been driven a bit,
know better than their drivers how to cover the ground, and they generally had much better be left to pick out their own gait than be forced to what the driver thinks is the gait they should take. So, in going up or down hill, if a horse shows a natural inclination to trot up even a steep hill, let him trot if he wants to; it will tire him less than holding him back.