[13] Latchford, 11 Upper St Martin’s Lane, London, and all saddlers.
[14] All the foregoing observations on saddlery apply equally to ladies’ saddles. Marked attention should be paid before they mount to the girths, which should be very tight, to prevent the saddle from turning, a lady’s weight being often altogether on one side.
[15] As a good shoulder, such as will keep a saddle in its place, is one of the great essentials in a gentleman’s hack, or indeed in an officer’s charger, giving him leverage to lift his legs safely and showily, it stands to reason that not many such will pass into the ranks at the Government price for remounts, which, however, is ample to supply animals suitable for the service, and does so in regiments where the class of horse provided at once proves that the whole sum allowed is invested in the remount itself, and proper judgment exercised in purchasing.
[16] It might not be out of place to mention, for the information of those who desire to be well taught, that, to my own knowledge, Allen’s, in Seymour Place, Bryanstone Square, and Clarendon’s, in Great Brunswick Street, Dublin, are excellent riding-schools.
[17] Those who probably have never received a professional riding-lesson in their lives, but still, from intuitive taste, ride with ease and ability.
[18] Talking of a horse being self-dependent in his movement on the road, puts me in mind of a challenge once accepted by a very practical horseman, to ride a notorious stumbler (reduced by this defect to mere farm-work) three times round Stephen’s Green, Dublin (a distance of over three miles), without falling. Given his choice of bits, some being of the severest kind, he rejected them all, desiring the groom to get him a common hemp halter, and with this simple head-gear, riding bare-backed, he accomplished the distance without the slightest mishap, and thereby won a large bet. The groom, however, resumed the use of the bit to ride the horse home (now feeling sufficient confidence to trust himself on his back instead of leading him), when the animal fell on his knees before he had gone a hundred yards.
[19] The incautious use of that rein, which has leverage on the curb, is very apt, with young unformed horses, or such as have been only accustomed to the bridoon or snaffle, to induce a notion of rearing, especially in anything of a rough attempt to “rein back” with; indeed, this latter point of training should be accomplished with the bridoon only.
[20] One can scarcely repress a smile on hearing cross-country misfortunes related, as they frequently are, in pretty nearly the following terms:—“I found my horse going sluggishly at his fences; and one place looking rather biggish, I shook him up with the bit, and put both heels into him to rouse him, but somehow or other the brute took off too soon, caught his fore feet, I suppose, against something, and came such a cropper on the other side!” or, “The beast kept going at such a bat at his fences that I brought him to book with my hands down, and with a good pull steadied him; but the brute with his awkwardness missed his footing on landing, dropped his hind legs into the brook somehow, and fell back on me, giving me a regular sousing!”
[21] In obscure lameness, to aid towards discovery of the affected part, having first decided which leg or foot is diseased, it is not a bad plan to walk the animal into a stream above the knees and take him out again (or have water dashed at once fully over the member), then kneel and closely observe which spot on the surface dries first—that which does so will probably prove to be the most inflamed part.
[22] In double harness, to increase your power in turning, shorten the coupling-reins; and to ease your horses, lengthen these to let their heads work more straight forward.