The Breastplate may be necessary in hunting or steeplechasing with horses that are light behind the girth, or what is vulgarly called “herring-gutted,” and is used to prevent the saddle from getting too far back, or, as the grooms say, the horse “running through his girths.” Animals trained to such trying work as steeplechasing, or even hunting, will become much smaller in the carcass than a trooper or an ordinary gentleman’s hack.
With dragoons this part of the equipment is generally ill-adjusted, as if to correspond with the inefficient arrangement of the crupper, the breast-straps being often too tight. Frequently, during manœuvring in the field or the riding-school, I have seen breast-straps burst in consequence of their tightness; and indeed it stands to reason they can thus but interfere with a horse’s action in leaping or making more than ordinary exertion. Their tightness not only renders discomfiture imminent, but must drag the saddle forward out of its place.
Altogether it might be desirable that commanding officers of some cavalry regiments would study the pose on horseback of Marochetti’s sculptured dragoons, or those of other eminent artists. The result would probably be a marked improvement in the position of the saddle, and, consequently, in the general coup d’œil of our cavalry, who, however, notwithstanding such minor defects, have always maintained their superiority in horsemanship, as well as in efficiency, over any other cavalry in the world.
RIDING.
The seat, method of holding the hands, &c., should be left to the riding-master,[16] with a friendly admonition to the learner to avoid the “stuck-up,” one-handed principle to a great extent, and to take a lesson whenever opportunity occurs from one of the “great untaught,”[17] and, observing their ease and judgment in the management of their bearers, endeavour to modify their own horsemanship accordingly.
Kindness goes far in managing these noble animals.
How is it that many horses that are unmanageable with powerful and good horsemen, can be ridden with perfect ease and safety by ladies? The first thing a lady generally does after mounting, is to reassure her steed by patting, or, in riding-school language, “making much of him,” taking up the reins with a very light hand, and giving him his head; whereas a man usually does the very reverse; he takes a commanding hold of the reins, presses his legs into the horse as the signal for motion, perhaps with a rasp of both spurs into his sides, indicating no great amiability of temper—a state of things very likely to be reciprocated by a high-spirited horse.
As before observed, every man ought himself to be able to judge whether his horse is properly saddled and bridled. I must still inveigh against misplacement of the saddle, which grooms, it will be remarked, usually place too far forward—a mistake which is of more consequence than is generally considered.
Take a dragoon, for instance, weighing, with arms, accoutrements, and kit, from fifteen to twenty stone; this weight, if allowed to fall unduly on the fore quarter, must help to founder the charger, and bring him into trouble on the first provocation. Let him make the least stumble, and the weight of his burden, instead of being back in its proper place, with the man’s assistance there to help him up, is thrown forward, keeping the beast tied down, and preventing his rising. But, taking appearances into consideration, the forward placement of the saddle is most ungraceful, reminding one of the position of an Eastern driving an elephant, seated on his bearer’s neck.
I have seen the tout ensemble of a magnificent cavalry regiment strikingly deteriorated by the ungraceful and absolutely unhorsemanlike misplacement of the saddles, and consequently of the men—though the military regulation on the subject is fair enough, directing a saddle to be placed a handbreadth behind the play of the shoulder. This would, perhaps, be a slight excess in the other direction, were it not considered that, in all probability, out of a hundred troop-horses so saddled, ninety-nine would be found after an hour’s trotting to have shifted the saddle forward, for one on whom it would have remained stationary or gone back.