Riding and Driving

by Edward L. Anderson; Price Collier

FIG. 58.—CAPTAIN W. C. SHORT, CAPTAIN GUY HENRY, LIEUTENANT GEORGE WILLIAMS

Girls should occasionally be placed upon a cross-saddle until they reach the age of ten or twelve years, so that they may learn the employment of the aids; but there is no more ungraceful position that a grown woman can take than to mount a horse astride; she has a far firmer seat in the side-saddle, and when she is a good rider never shows to greater advantage.

Any man may learn to ride with safety and comfort at any age as long as he has the necessary activity; and there are many men of forty, or even of fifty, who would be able to ward off old age for a long time, and have a pleasurable, wholesome exercise, by riding horses that do not require too much skill in their management.

For one to excel in horsemanship, certain physical qualifications and a rare gift, aptitude for the art, are required. I have often heard William Fritz of Stuttgart say at an early lesson, "That boy will never make a rider," or, less frequently, "Ah! here we have a good one;" for that experienced teacher soon recognized the possession of the necessary adroitness or the want of it.

But even where one has every natural advantage, he will never become a horseman without some instruction in the general principles of the art. These have been formulated, after centuries of experiment, and it is impossible that any one should acquire a useful knowledge of them by his unaided endeavors. The worst rider who ever mounted a horse imitated other, and of course better, horsemen when he essayed to get outside of the animal; but he doubtless thought that he was his own instructor, and it is the man of such reasoning powers who refuses to learn. We know that in the history of the world there was but one "natural rider," the brother of the first oyster-eater, who in the dawn of the quaternary period rode his family dinner, a broken-down, prehistoric horse, to his cave home. Since that event riding has been an art handed down by tradition and imitation.

The aptitude of which I speak is indicated by suppleness of the body, deftness of hands and legs, and the faculty of obtaining an understanding with the horse. Rigidity in any part will prevent one becoming a good horseman. The aids (hands and heels) must be applied with celerity and precision, and the rider must feel what the horse is doing and what it purposes to do. All of these things demand long and carefully conducted practice, but their full acquirement is denied to most men; otherwise we would have more such masters as De Bussigny.

From long practice in applying the aids the thorough horseman can use hands and legs without conscious thought, and he would often find it difficult to say offhand what he had done under certain conditions. His movements become as impulsive as those of the skilled pianist, who methodically touches thousands of keys with such marvellous rapidity that it seems impossible that his mind can even follow his fingers.

The trained horse under the trained rider moves at the master's will; the two are one, it is the centaur. The intent is one with the action, there is no time for consideration, thought has been expended in early practice and has produced those instinctive motions of the man which are always right and always instantly obeyed instinctively.

From the first, it should be known that riding is the production by the rider's heels of impulses which are met, governed, and directed by his hand. Therefore the secret of success in horsemanship is that the spur must always precede the hand, whether it be to advance, to turn, or to go backward. If the hand is not given impulses, it is powerless, and the horse is not under control. Whenever the word "spur" is used, it indicates such effect of the leg aid as the condition requires, whether it be the pressure of the calf against the side of the horse, the tap of the heel, or the prick of the sharp rowel.