The Horse in America / A practical treatise on the various types common in the United States, with something of their history and varying characteristics

by John Gilmer Speed

[11]. I hope it will never occur to a visitor to this country to think that what is called the mounted traffic squad of the New York police represent any American type of riders. With them it is go-as-you-please and kind Heaven help us from falling off. Only a few moments before making this note I saw a group of these police going through the Fourth avenue. Some were ambling, some single-footing, some in a hand gallop and some trotting. One noble horse, fit for a general’s charger, was going two or three gaits at once and the rider keeping his seat with the help of the reins.

The best horseman usually gets his instruction and acquires most of his skill in his early youth. But there is no use in putting a boy on a horse until he has intelligence enough to learn what he is told to do and strength sufficient to keep his seat and manage his horse. The pony for very young children is merely a plaything. No child ever learned much from a pony or by means of a pony. The horse is what a man rides, and it is upon a horse that a child should be taught. A large horse would not be suitable for a boy of ten or eleven, the earliest age that a boy can learn much that is valuable of the art. But the small horse, something like a polo pony for instance, may be and should be very much of a horse—all horse, indeed. Where there is a good riding school—that is the place to send a lad for his first instruction. There are some grooms, however, who make excellent instructors, even though as a general thing grooms look like the dickens in the saddle. They know horses, however, and know how to ride them, even though they do not acquire the finish and excellence that is to be expected of gentlemen. But as critics of the riding of others they are often unexcelled. Have some kind of a master, unless he be an ignoramus, for a lad in the beginning, and by no means let him go at the game by the light of nature. Uninstructed he is sure to acquire habits that it will be harder for him to overcome than it would have been for him to be correct from the beginning. And he should be given a reason for everything he is told to do. That it is necessary to be reasonable in riding makes me sometimes think that it would be just as well not to put a boy on a horse until he was fifteen or sixteen. The objection to this delay is that a lad will be kept out of four or five years of fun in the very playtime of his life.

A beginner should use only a snaffle-bit with one rein. The awkwardness of a beginner and his disposition to help keep his seat with the aid of the reins is frequently a severe hardship on a horse and pretty sure to ruin a horse’s mouth. Besides both snaffle and curb are in the beginning confusing, and too much of a handful for a tyro in a novel position. Of course a correct seat in the saddle is impossible at first, but an effort at it should be made from the start. When the beginner is placed in the saddle he should sit up straight and let his legs hang down straight. Then the stirrups should be adjusted so that when the ball of the foot is upon the iron, the leg still being straight, the heel will be about three inches below the stirrup. Then the rider should be required to so bend his knees that his toe and heel will be on a level without moving back into the saddle so that his buttocks will be against the cantle. This bending of the knees will bring them in a position so that they can clutch the horse and secure his seat. Great emphasis should be laid upon the fact that the toes should not be turned out. The feet should be parallel with the horse. When they are so the knees come in contact with the saddle and the seat is secured. When a rider turns out his toes he must depend upon the calf of the leg to form his clutch. This not only is awkward, but it prevents the thighs from doing their part of the work.

Being thus mounted the beginner should only walk his horse at first. Indeed I should not recommend anything faster than a walk in the first lesson. The object of that first lesson is to familiarize a novice to a novel position, and enable him to know something of the sensation of being astride a horse. If he go faster at first he is sure to bump around and tug on the reins, the latter being about the greatest sin against horsemanship. After this he can go in a very slow trot, and still later in a hand gallop. Having acquired the capacity to keep his seat in these gaits with his feet parallel to the horse and his knees well in and without tugging on the reins to keep his balance, he has reached the point when he may be instructed to ride with both reins, snaffle, and curb. There are some riders who never use other than the snaffle, indeed it was quite a fad in the neighborhood of New York a few years ago. But I do not believe that the very best results can be obtained without the curb. The curb enables a rider to keep his horse better in hand, and a horse not in hand under the saddle is apt to do several disagreeable things—sprawl or be slouchy in his gaits, for instance, or worse than all tumble down.

To hold the snaffle and curb reins in the left hand properly so that either one or both may be used at pleasure is most important. The reins of the curb bit should be divided by the little finger, the reins of the snaffle by the long finger, the loose ends of both pairs being carried through the hand and held by the thumb against the forefinger. The right hand should be kept on the loose ends of the reins behind the left, and when reins are needed to be shortened the right hand should pull them or either of them through the bridle hand; but when the right hand is needed in assistance of the bridle hand, the right should be placed in front of the left. The knuckles of the bridle rein should be kept up. This all seems simple enough, and it is so simple when learned that an experienced rider never gives it a thought; but new riders some times find it hard to learn, indeed some never learn it.

The beginner should not use a spur. Most people think a spur is an instrument of punishment. It should seldom be so used. It is merely a tool to assist the rider in conveying his wishes to the horse. But to an obstinate, pig-headed horse it is a reminder that the rider has something in reserve. The horse, by the way, is not the intellectual animal that some think, and “horse sense” ought not to be much of a compliment to a man. Seven horses out of ten will become bullies, and get the upper hand if they be suffered so to do. There is one sense, however, that even a bullying horse always preserves—he knows the touch of the master hand and stops his “monkey shines” in very short order. But there are other horses—crazy horses and fool horses. The crazy horse can be subdued by the Rarey or other similar method, but for the fool horse there is no hope. He learns nothing, remembers nothing—the glue factory for him is the only proper place.

And how late in life can a man take up horseback riding? That is hard to say. There are men and men—some at forty are to all intents and purposes sixty, while others at sixty appear not over forty. So long as a man retains a reasonable amount of suppleness and agility he is not too old to take up horseback riding and get great pleasure and benefit out of it, while if he began as a youth and has kept it up there is no reason why he should give it up so long as he can sit a horse and the exercise is not too exhausting. Remember what Lord Palmerston said: “The best thing for the inside of a man is the outside of a horse.” And it is so; there is no exercise that so aids digestion, none which more completely takes the cobwebs out of the brain. A man who takes up horseback riding in middle life need not expect to become as accomplished say as his son who began at twelve; but if he will give his mind to it he will be apt to do very well and will surely get from it both pleasure and profit. I know a lady who did not take up horseback riding until she was a mother. I have seen her in the hunting field since she became a grandmother sailing along as gaily as a bird, and even taking a tumble with the serene amiability of a youth in small clothes. But she has found the fabled spring.

That every rider will sooner or later have a fall is inevitable. Therefore when the first one comes there should be no discouragement, even to a man of middle age. Many falls are prevented when a horse stumbles by gathering the horse, and assisting him to regain his footing. But often, in jumping particularly, the fall cannot be prevented. When the rider feels it coming the best way is to take the feet from the stirrups, tuck in the chin, and fall as much like a ball as possible, holding the reins, however, until the feet are surely clear of the stirrups. I was recently knocked off my horse on a steep hillside path by coming in contact with the limb of a tree. I rolled down the hillside for fifty feet, but suffered no inconvenience though I weigh 175 pounds and carry an undue amount of that weight at the middle. Had I landed on my head, the consequences would probably have been serious.

Every rider should learn how to make a horse change his lead in the gallop, that is, change the leading foot from right to left and back again. Horses naturally go with the right foot in front or the left foot in front, as the case may be, just as children are more dextrous with the right hand or the left. When the change is desired, the horse should be well in hand, and when from right to left is required the right heel should be applied when the leading foot is on the ground, and the hind legs are leaving it; immediately thereafter as the right fore foot is rising the left rein should make a slight play and the change in lead will be effected without a false step or disturbance in pace. Every rider should practise making figure eights, each circle being from twenty to thirty feet in diameter, and asking his horse to change the lead when going from one circle to the other. In some show rings the judges require that the riders do this, and those who accomplish it easily and gracefully help their score very considerably.

The American jockeys have developed a new method of race riding, a kind of acrobatic horsemanship, which when the English first saw it they called the “monkey-on-the-stick” style. The jockeys use very short stirrups and seem to throw the weight even forward of the withers so as to relieve the hind legs, where the propelling power is, from as much weight as possible. It seems effective and has been almost universally adopted by all save steeplechase riders, who still use a stirrup long enough for both knees and legs to embrace the horse—or as Mr. Anderson says, they still ride like men.