Use of the whip. Gentlemen having a leg and spur on each side of the horse to urge and to guide him, should ride without any whip at all if the horse has been subjected to the leg, so as to have the right hand as free for the reins as the left: there should be no such thing as “a bridle hand.” If a whip is carried, it should be as light as possible. It should be held up like a hunter or a rough-rider, not down like a jockey; and so completely between the hand and the thumb as to leave the fingers free for the reins. To carry that club called the handle of a hunting whip is a frightful enormity. The excuse is, to open gates; but if you put your horse’s side against a gate, it is better opened by the hand, but keep your leg from your horse’s side. The fingering of the reins should not be impeded even by thick gloves; as thick muffettees as you like, but no gloves thicker than kid.
The action of the whip, by the turn of the wrist, on either side of the horse, is of every importance in lady’s riding, in colt-breaking, in riding the restive horse, and I had well nigh said, in hunting and race riding. Horses swerve and turn only to the left. For how often do we see the race lost by a swerve to the left (attributed to distress). The hunter invariably refuses by turning to the left. The restive horse invariably turns to the left. Have all horses joined in Holy Alliance to fight on one plan? If not, why do they all turn to the left? Because the whip is only used on the right. There is, however, another cause which acts in conjunction with this. Fault in English two-handed riding. Even our finest two-handed English riders (who, in my opinion, are the finest riders in the world), when they use the right hand on the right rein, continue to hold both reins with the left hand, and they slip the right rein a little through the left hand in order to place both hands even. This is a most vicious habit. When they quit the right rein to use the whip, or to throw the arm back at a fence (another most vicious habit), by their system of holding and handling the reins they have not the power to place the lengthened right rein short in the left hand. Alas! poor horse! He is then pulled to the left by the left rein, driven to the left by the whip on the right, and then abused for answering these natural indications, which he has been trained habitually to obey.
[16-*] This is one reason against an unalterable bearing-rein.
[16-†] Have mercy on this little word, great reader, and do compound a sesquipedalian clutch for me, out of digitus and δάκτυλος.
CHAPTER III.
EFFECT OF INDICATIONS.
Retaining, urging, and guiding indications.—To make the horse collect himself.—Canter, right turn, right pass.—Left shoulder in.—Bearing on the mouth.—The horse must be made to collect himself in turning.—And should not be turned on one rein only.—Lady’s canter.—The quicker the pace, the greater degree of collection.—French and English mistake here.—The shy horse.—The restive horse.—Truth may be paradoxical.
Retaining, urging, and guiding indications. There are three sorts of indications, retaining, urging, and guiding.