Riding and Driving

by Edward L. Anderson; Price Collier

As this is the key to perfection in all driving, everybody claims to possess it; only the elect few have it.

Practically everybody can learn to play the piano or the violin, or to write tolerable verses; only a very few, indeed, ever attain to supreme command over these instruments, or over the music of words. Training and teaching may accomplish much and make fair or even excellent performers; but beyond that it is divine grace, born not made, given not attained. The same is true of driving: you may be one of the elect, but if you are, you belong to a society as small as that of the Knights of the Garter, and you need not be vain, since it was no hard work of yours, but an endowment. It is a combination of physical and mental traits, a quickness of connection between nerve and brain and muscle, that may be cultivated and improved in all men, but which reaches perfection only in the few. Corbett, in "An Old Coachman's Chatter," says, "Even for a good amateur to acquire professional style requires two years averaging eighty miles a day, with a fair amount of night work."

A persistent man may do much. He may learn to write excellent verse, with no hope of ever being a poet; he may learn to jump higher than the average, without the slightest prospect of doing six feet, six and a half inches, which thus far has only been done by one man in the world; he may learn to run, or swim, or speak, but the heights of the unexcelled are not for him. This much ought to be said about driving at the start. You may read books from now till doomsday, and you may practise, and you will undoubtedly become an excellent and trustworthy coachman, far above the average,—not a difficult attainment, by the way,—but to have this magic of "hands" is not, I believe, attainable except to those endowed physically and mentally with peculiar powers, in peculiar combination. It is because everybody thinks he knows how to drive, simply because he can steer quadrupeds with steel in their mouths, that this point is emphasized. No one need neglect this sport on the ground that the vision and the attainment are limited; they are not, and to most men even confident competence is denied, not to speak of this virtuosity of hands.

Now that you are in your seat with the reins as they should be, between the thumb and second and between the third and fourth fingers of your left hand, wrist properly bent, and in a sufficiently humble and docile state of mind, you should notice why the reins are separated by two fingers instead of one, and why the near rein is kept so far as possible over the knuckle of the second finger. Just as the wrist makes play backward and forward, so this separation of the reins enables you to make play sideways or across the horse's mouth. By turning your hand toward you, so that the knuckles, instead of facing the horse, face the sky, you shorten that upper rein, the near rein, and your horse goes over to the left, or near side. By turning your hand just the other way and bringing it across to the left hip, you shorten the off rein and turn your horse to the right. All done with one hand, you still have the other for your whip, to render any assistance needed. There are scores of times when to steer your horse, and still to have the right hand free, means not merely convenience, but safety.

It is a peculiarity of driving that it is almost the one sport in which the sportsman is the custodian of, and responsible for, other people. A man rides, shoots, and does other dangerous things alone, but nine times out of ten he drives with others alongside of him. It is doubly necessary, therefore, that he should know his business thoroughly, and, if he is to make a practice of driving others, that he should spare no pains to know all that he can.

The fact that the left hand is held as directed keeps the reins secure, and keeps them secure with the least possible exertion. As this position of the hand, wrist, and fingers is a little awkward at first to the beginner, most driving is done with the wrist not held across the body, but pointing toward the horse, with the thumb held over the reins as a sort of clip and pointing also toward the horse. The reins held in this fashion are of necessity insecure and forever slipping forward, and there is no leverage of wrist for the horse's mouth, but a straight pull from an outstretched arm.

One often hears the comment that one cannot as easily hold a horse this way as with the reins, say in both hands. That is exactly the secret of it. It is just so that you cannot keep a dead pull on the poor brute's mouth that this position is the ideal one. You don't want to pull your horse, but to drive him. Most driving, by the way, seems to have as its central feature how to stop him, rather than how to make him go pleasantly; how to get the quickest and sharpest jerk on his mouth in case of trouble, rather than how to exert the least possible pressure that will command obedience. With a well-bitted horse, you should be able to make figure eights by moving the left hand as directed without touching the reins with the right hand at all. The position of the hired coachman on the box of a Victoria or brougham these days is a ludicrous one for the reason that most of them, and evidently their masters, know nothing of the reason for that position. It was intended by balancing the coachman thus to prevent his putting great weight on the reins, as he might do if his feet and legs stuck out in front of him and his hands were held at arm's length. It is well and proper that he should be balanced on his seat with his back hollowed in, his elbows at his side, his hand across and in front of him; but tucking his legs and feet back and way underneath him defeats the whole plan by forcing him to hold on by the reins, which is just what it was hoped to avoid. His feet and legs, as in the case of the gentleman coachman, should be at such an angle in front of him that he has a perfectly easy balance and something to brace against in case he needs to exert extra power. On a lady's light Victoria, with nothing but the narrow foot-board in front of him, a coachman in this new-fangled position is not only a figure of fun, but he is also in grave danger of accident. This monkey-on-a-stick attitude is a blundering misinterpretation of a perfectly sensible rule.

So far as the amateur coachman is concerned, he should sit straight, with his back so hollowed that he can balance easily on his hips, not on the edge of, but on the cushion, with his feet and legs at a comfortable angle, and without that look of going out after the reins one so often sees—a care-worn, bent-over position, as though the reins were sliding away, never to reappear.

Start out moderately, keep your horse at an even pace, and come in toward the end of your journey again at a moderate pace. A horse is not saved by doing ten miles in two hours instead of one. On the contrary, it takes less out of a horse to make him do his journey at a smart gait rather than to dawdle. You may have noticed yourself that a brisk two hours' walk takes far less out of you than the standing around, the stopping and starting, and the general dawdling of two hours' shopping. Here again the size of the horse's stomach should help to solve the problem of how fast and how far. It is better that he should do his task at a brisk pace and get back to his rub down, his meal, and his rest, than that he should be jogged for a long time at a stretch. Even when it is necessary to keep him going and to keep him away from his stable for an undue number of hours, which must sometimes happen, he should be given a short rest and a small meal of soft food; this will make all the difference between over fatigue that may result seriously, and fatigue easily cured by proper rest. A horse worked at regular hours, and regularly and properly fed, is three-quarters of the way toward being and keeping in good condition.