Road Scrapings: Coaches and Coaching

by M. E. Haworth

A team, if carelessly driven for a few journeys, will soon forget their good manners, and begin to lean and bore upon a coachman’s hands; and when the weight of one horse’s head (if he declines to carry it himself) is considered and multiplied by four, it will readily be believed that a coachman driving fifty or sixty miles daily will make it his study to reduce his own labour by getting his horses to go pleasantly and cheerfully together.

There are, of course, instances which defy all the science which can be brought to bear. Horses do not come to a coach because they are found too virtuous for other employment, and the fact of their being engaged with a blank character, or, at most, “has been in harness,” does not inform the purchaser that they made firewood of the trap in their last situation.

I do not intend this remark to be defamatory of the whole of the horses working in the coaches of the revival. The average prices obtained at the sales at the end of the season prove the contrary. Many horses working in the coaches of the present day have occupied very creditable places in the hunting-field, and, should they return thither, will be found none the worse for having been summered in a stage-coach.

Indeed, I am of opinion that this method of summering has considerable advantages over the system so often adopted, of first inflicting the greatest pain and punishment upon the animal by blistering all round, whether he requires it or not, and then sentencing him to five months’ solitary confinement in a melancholy box or very limited yard.

In the first case, a horse doing a comparatively short stage, provided he is carefully driven, is always amused. His muscles and sinews are kept in action without being distressed, his diet is generous and sufficient without being inflammatory, and, though last not least, he is a constant source of pleasurable satisfaction to his owner, as well as a means of bringing him to the notice of many sporting admirers, who may materially help the average in the autumn sale.

There is no doubt that horses, as a rule, enjoy coaching work, and many become good disciples to a ten-mile stage which could not be persuaded to do a stroke of work of any other description.

There are many exceptions to this rule. I have found in my own experience that, when hurriedly getting together twenty or thirty horses for coaching purposes, I have been fascinated by symmetry, and perhaps by small figures, and have bought an unprofitable horse. A visit to St. Martin’s Lane, under such circumstances, once made me possessor of the very prettiest animal I almost ever saw—a red chestnut mare, a broad front, two full intelligent eyes, with a head which would have gone easily into a pint pot, ears well set on, a long lean neck, joining to such withers and shoulders as would have shamed a Derby winner, legs and feet which defied unfavourable criticism. Here was a catch! And all this for eighteen guineas! Nothing said, nothing written; her face was her fortune, and I thought, mine too. She’s too good for the coach; she ought to ride, to carry a lady; appears a perfect lamb. I could not resist what appeared to me an opportunity which everybody except myself seemed to neglect; I bowed to the gentleman in the box, who immediately dropped his hammer, saying: “For you!”

I overheard some remarks from the spectators which did not confirm my satisfaction at having invested in an animal without any character. “She knows her way here by herself;” “She won’t have leather at any price,” whispered another coper; but, as all evil reports are resorted to by the craft on such occasions, I did not heed them.

I soon found out that my new purchase was not precisely a lamb. To mount her was impossible. She reared, bucked, kicked, plunged, and finally threw herself down; so that part of the business I gave up. I then began to put harness upon her. To this she submitted cheerfully, and, when she had stood in it for two days, I gammoned her into her place in the break, when, having planted herself, she declined to move one inch. The schoolmaster (break-horse) exercised all the patience and encouragement which such equine instructors know so well how to administer. He started the load, pulling very gently. He pulled a little across her, he backed a few inches, then leaned suddenly from her. All this being to no purpose, he tried coercion, and dragged her on, upon which, turning the whites of her innocent eyes up, she made one plunge and flung herself down.

The schoolmaster looked at her reproachfully, but stood still as a mouse, in spite of her whole weight being upon his pole-chain, till she was freed.