Children who have courage may be taught to ride almost as soon as they can walk. On the Pampas of South America you may see a boy seven years old on horseback, driving a herd of horses, and carrying a baby in his arms!
I began my own lessons at four, when I sat upon an old mare in the stall while the groom polished harness or blacked his boots. Mr. Nathaniel Gould, who, at upwards of seventy years, and sixteen stone weight, can still ride hunting for seven or eight hours at a stretch, mentions, in his observations on horses and hunting,[114-*] that a nephew of his followed the Cheshire fox-hounds at seven years of age. “His manner of gathering up his reins was most singular, and his power of keeping his seat, with his little legs stretched horizontally along the saddle, quite surprising.” The hero Havelock, writing to his little boy, says, “You are now seven years old, and ought to learn to ride. I hope to hear soon that you have made progress in that important part of your education. Your uncle William (a boy-hero in the Peninsula) rode well before he was seven years old.” The proper commencement for a boy is a pony in which he can interest himself, and on which he may learn to sit as a horseman should.
I particularly warn parents against those broad-backed animals which, however suitable for carrying heavy old gentlemen, or sacks to market, are certainly very uncomfortable for the short legs of little boys, and likely to induce rupture. On a narrow, well-bred pony, of 11 or 12 hands high, a boy of six can sit like a little man. It is cruel to make children ride with bare legs.
Before Rarey introduced his system, there was no satisfactory mode of training those ponies that were too small for a man to mount, unless the owner happened to live near some racing stable, where he could obtain the services of a “feather-weight doll,” and then the pony often learned tricks more comic than satisfactory.
By patiently applying the practices explained in the preceding chapters, the smallest and most highly-bred pony may be reduced to perfect docility without impairing its spirit, and taught a number of amusing tricks.
Young ladies may learn on full-sized horses quite as well as on ponies, if they are provided with suitable side-saddles.
A man, or rather a boy, may learn to ride by practice and imitation, and go on tumbling about until he has acquired a firm and even elegant seat, but no lady can ever learn to ride as a lady should ride, without a good deal of instruction; because her seat on horseback is so thoroughly artificial, that without some competent person to tell her of her faults, she is sure to fall into a number of awkward ungraceful tricks. Besides, a riding-school, with its enclosed walls and trained horses, affords an opportunity of going through the preliminary lessons without any of those accidents which on the road, or in a field, are very likely to occur with a raw pupil on a fresh horse. For a young lad to fall on the grass, is not a serious affair, but a lady should never be allowed to run the chance of a fall, because it is likely to destroy the nerve, without which no lessons can be taught successfully. All who have noticed the performances of Amazones in London, or at Brighton, must have in remembrance the many examples of ladies who, with great courage, sit in a manner that is at once fearful and ridiculous to behold; entirely dependent on the good behaviour of horses, which they, in reality, have no power of turning, and scarcely of stopping.
Little girls who learn their first lessons by riding with papa, who is either absorbed in other business, or himself a novice in the art of horsemanship, get into poky habits, which it is extremely difficult to eradicate when they reach the age when every real woman wishes to be admired.
Therefore, let everyone interested in the horsemanship of a young lady commence by placing her, as early as possible, under the tuition of a competent professional riding-master, unless he knows enough to teach her himself. There are many riding-schools where a fair seat is acquired by the lady pupils, but in London, at any rate, only two or three where they learn to use the reins, so as to control an unruly horse.
Both sexes are apt to acquire the habit of holding on by the bridle. To avoid this grave error, the first lessons in walking and cantering should be given to the pupil on a led horse, without taking hold of the bridle; and this should be repeated in learning to leap. The horsemanship of a lady is not complete until she has learned to leap, whether she intends to ride farming or hunting, or to confine herself to Rotten Row canters; for horses will leap and bound at times without permission.