CHAPTER VIII.
Value of good horsemanship to both sexes.—On teaching children.—Anecdote.—Havelock’s opinion.—Rarey’s plan to train ponies.—The use of books.—Necessity of regular teaching for girls, boys can be self-taught.—Commence without a bridle.—Ride with one pair of reins and two hands.—Advantage of hunting-horn on side-saddle.—On the best plan for mounting.—Rarey’s plan.—On a man’s seat.—Nolan’s opinion.—Military style.—Hunting style.—Two examples in Lord Cardigan.—The Prussian style.—Anecdote by Mr. Gould, Blucher, and the Prince Regent.—Hints for men learning to ride.—How to use the reins.—Pull right for right, and left for left.—How to collect your horse.
You cannot learn to ride from a book, but you may learn how to do some things and how to avoid many things of importance. Those who know all about horses and horsemanship, or fancy they do, will not read this chapter. But as there are riding-schools in the City of London, where an excellent business is done in teaching well-grown men how to ride for health or fashion, and as papas who know their own bump-bump style very well often desire to teach their daughters, I have collected the following instructions from my own experience, now extending over full thirty years, on horses of all kinds, including the worst, and from the best books on the subject, some of the best being anonymous contributions by distinguished horsemen, printed for private circulation. Every man and woman, girl and boy, who has the opportunity, should learn to ride on horseback. It is almost an additional sense—it is one of the healthiest exercises—it affords amusement when other amusements fail—relaxation from the most severe toil, and often, in colonies or wild countries, the only means of travelling or trading.
A man feels twice a man on horseback. The student and the farmer meet, when mounted, the Cabinet Minister and the landlord on even terms—good horsemanship is a passport to acquaintances in all ranks of life, and to make acquaintances is one of the arts of civilised life; to ripen them into use or friendship is another art. On horseback you can call with less ceremony, and meet or leave a superior with less form than on foot. Rotten Row is the ride of idleness and pleasure, but there is a great deal of business done in sober walks and slow canters, commercial, political, and matrimonial.
For a young lady not to be able to ride with a lover is a great loss; not to be able to ride with a young husband a serious privation.
The first element for enjoying horse exercise is good horsemanship. Colonel Greenwood says very truly:—“Good riding is worth acquiring by those whose pleasure or business it is to ride, because it is soon and easily acquired, and, when acquired, it becomes habitual; and it is as easy, nay, much more easy, and infinitely more safe, than bad riding.” “Good riding will last through age, sickness, and decrepitude, but bad riding will last only as long as youth, health, and strength supply courage; for good riding is an affair of skill, but bad riding is an affair of courage.”
A bold bad rider must not be merely brave; he must be fool-hardy; for he is perpetually in as much danger as a blind man among precipices.
In riding, as in most other things, danger is for the timid and the unskilful. The skilful rider, when apparently courting danger in the field, deserves no more credit for courage than for sitting in an arm-chair, and the unskilful no more the imputation of timidity for backwardness than if without practice he declined to perform on the tight-rope. Depend upon it, the bold bad rider is the hero.
There is nothing heroic in good riding, when dissected. The whole thing is a matter of detail—a collection of trifles—and its principles are so simple in theory and so easy in practice that they are despised.
It is an accomplishment that may, to a certain extent, be acquired late in life. I know instances in both sexes of a fair firm seat having been acquired under the pressure of necessity after forty years of age (I could name lawyers, sculptors, architects, and sailors), but it may be acquired with ease and perfection in youth, and it is most important that no awkward habits should be acquired.