Riding and Driving

by Edward L. Anderson; Price Collier

Be it said at once that the best practice is that of driving different teams every day, and that can only be obtained where there is a good deal of road coaching, and you are of an ability to be permitted to drive. Next to that, probably, comes the experience and knowledge to be derived from getting together, harnessing, bitting, and getting to go, a four out of your own stable. Most books and most teachers deal with the subject of driving four as though appearances counted ninety-seven per cent, and your own pleasure and profit three per cent.

We are dealing with four-in-hand driving here as a pastime, as an opportunity for variety in your own driving, and as a refreshing change in their way of going for your horses. Remember always that it is not hard on, but good for, your horses to give them variety of work. Horses that are well housed, carefully fed and watered, comfortably harnessed, and discreetly driven are much better for change of scene and change of work. This is not intended to mean that a light, high-strung lady's saddle-horse is improved by being put to work in the wheel of a break; or that, of any horse, too much work or the kind of work to which he is palpably unsuited should be required of him. What is maintained here is that very few owners of horses get all the fun out of them that there is to be had.

These questions of pole-chains or leather pole-pieces, this or that shape of bit,—so long as the bit fits the inside of the horse's mouth,—housings or no housings, stable-clothes or breeches and boots, are all matters that come after, not before, driving. The study of appearances comes after the knowledge of essentials, not before. Appearances as the result of knowledge take care of themselves; but the mere study of appearances teaches nothing. When you have learned to harness and put to your horses, start, stop, turn them, and keep them going evenly, at a proper pace; and when your thong is as easily handled as a walking-stick, then will be time enough to investigate matters of buttons, hat brims, curve of bit-shanks, whiphandles, cut of greatcoats, and methods of saluting with the whip.

A certain amount of strength is the first requisite in driving four horses. It is calculated that the weight on the hand of the four reins, averages from six to ten pounds for a light, well-bitted team, less perhaps for a perfect team, and running up as high as twenty-five, to even more, pounds in holding a team going down hill. The writer remembers the painful numbness of the left forearm when he first drove four, years ago. It is well to invigorate the arms, and to begin a very little at a time at this exercise, or an overdose at a first lesson may put the forearm out of commission for some days. Pulleys, dumb-bells, Indian clubs, or carrying a loaded walking-stick will muscle up the arm and put it in condition.

The use of the four-in-hand whip is so all-important that it should not be left to the last, but practised persistently from the start. Many teams, bitted and trained by professionals and only driven in the park by their owners, require almost no use of the thong; and as a result many drivers of four horses can hardly put up a thong, let alone use it with any success.

Place the point of the thong under the fingers, grasping the stick, not at the end, but at the point where the ferrule encircles it (Plate XXXI.). Swing the point of the stick from left to right with a slight downward movement, then make a quick half circle from left to right and upward, and your thong will curl around your stick three or four times and hold there. The lower part of the thong will curl around the handle the opposite way. Between the upper and lower coil will hang a bight of the thong (Plate XXXI.). Move your stick over to the left or driving hand, pull out the lower coil with the thumb and forefinger of that hand, and place the point of your thong again under your right hand, the thong now going around the stick in the same direction all the way down so that it is easily unwound when wanted (Plate XXXI.). The point of the thong is more secure in your right hand if it is wrapped a couple of times around the handle, though there is high authority against this practice, on the ground that it is not so easy to unwind your thong when wanted. If you are a beginner, you will find it safer to make the couple of turns around the handle. Mr. Bronson, who was one of the very best of our American whips, held, and with justice, that the point of the thong should not be wrapped around the stick, maintaining that just when the hands were needed it required two hands to undo it. The whip should be held pointing upward and to the left. When the thong hangs over the middle of the back of the near wheeler, your whip will be in about the right position.

The way usually recommended for putting up the thong is to make a large S on the wall and follow this with the point of the whip, beginning at the bottom and moving across from left to right. To do this, start slowly from left to right, and let the upper curve be made with a turn of the wrist which will bring the fingers uppermost at the finish.

It is exasperatingly easy, and exasperatingly difficult. Once you get the knack, it is like skating and swimming, you wonder how you were ever puzzled. If these directions are not clear, get some one to pound it into you by persistent instruction; for, of all awkward things, none is more so than the confusion arising from a dangling thong, that cannot be made to go up, and stay up, where it belongs. Nothing but constant practice makes one comfortable with the whip. If you are driving in the country, unwind and put up your thong constantly; even take out your four-in-hand whip with one or two horses, and practise, practise, practise. Some day, in a crowded street or in the park, when a cut of the whip is imperatively necessary and a quick return of the thong to its place as necessary, you will not regret a moment of the time spent in this way. Do not trust to luck in this matter. What is usually called "luck" is, after all, the happy way ability and opportunity have of often meeting. Keep your thong pliable, otherwise it will not stay in its place and be difficult to put up.

In using your whip, make as little fuss and noise as possible; each horse should be hit so that the other three hear nothing and know nothing. Do not flick a horse, but hit and draw the thong at the same time, then it means something. In putting up your thong, do not make a flourish with the arm. It is just as easy to put the thong up with the right elbow at the side.

The wheelers should be hit in front of the pad, down the shoulder; it is better to hit the off wheeler on the off shoulder if his mate is restive.