Ladies on Horseback / Learning, Park-riding, and Hunting, with Hints Upon Costume, and Numerous Anecdotes

by Mrs. Power O'Donoghue

You recall your sufferings during your first days upon the ice, or on the rink. How utterly impossible it seemed that you could ever excel; how you tumbled about; how miserably helpless you felt, and how many heavy falls you got! Yet you conquered in the end, and so you will again.

You take courage and mount your steed. First you walk him a little, as yesterday; and then the jolting begins again. How are you ever to get into that rise and fall which you have seen with others, and so much covet? How are you to accomplish it? Only by doing as I tell you, and persevering in it. As your horse throws out his near foreleg press your foot upon your stirrup, in time to lift yourself slightly as his off foreleg is next thrown out. Watch the motion of his legs, press your foot, and at the same time slightly lift yourself from your saddle. For a long while, many days perhaps, it will seem to be all wrong; you have not got into it one bit; you are just as far from it apparently as when you commenced. You are hot and vexed, and you, perhaps, cry with mortification and disappointment, as I have seen many a young beginner do; bitterly worried and disheartened you are, and ready to give up, when, lo! quite suddenly, as though it had come to you by magic and not through your own steady perseverance, you find yourself rising and falling with the trot of the horse, and your labours are rewarded.

After this your lessons are a source of delight. You no longer come from them flushed and worried, but joyous and exultant and impatient for the next. You have begun to feel quite brave, and to throw out hints that you are longing for a good ride on the road. You now know how to make your horse trot and canter; the first by a light touch of your whip and a gentle movement of your bridle through his mouth; the second by a slight bearing of the rein upon the near side of his mouth, so as to make him go off upon the right leg, and a little warning touch of your heel. You fancy, in fact, that you are quite a horsewoman, and have already rolled up your hair into a neat knot, and hinted to papa that you should greatly like a habit. But, alas! you have plenty of trouble yet before you, plenty to learn, plenty of falls to get and to bear. At present you can ride fairly well on the straight; but you know nothing of keeping your balance in time of danger. Your horse is very quiet, but if he chanced to put back his ears you would be off.

You are taught to maintain your balance in the following way:—

Your attendant waits until your horse is cantering pretty briskly in a circle from left to right, when he suddenly cracks his whip close to the animal's heels, who immediately swerves and turns the other way. You have had no warning of the movement, and consequently you tumble off, and are put up again, feeling a little shaken and a good deal crestfallen. Most likely you will fall again and again, until you have thoroughly mastered the art of riding from balance.

This is a method I have seen adopted, especially in schools, with considerable success, but it is certainly attended with inconvenience to the learner, and with a goodly portion of the risk from falls which all who ride must of necessity run. To ride well from balance is not a thing which can be accomplished in a day, nor a month, nor perhaps a year. Many pass a life-time without practically comprehending the meaning of the term. They ride every day, hold on to the bridle, guide their horses, and trust to chance for the rest; but this is not true horsemanship. It could no more be called riding than could a piece of mechanical pianoforte-playing be termed music. When you have, after much difficulty and delay, mastered the obstacles which marred your progress, you will then have the happy consciousness of feeling that however your horse may shy or swerve, or otherwise depart from his good manners, you can sit him with the ease and closeness of a young centaur.

This art of riding from balance is not half sufficiently known. It is one most difficult to acquire, but the study is worth the labour. Nine-tenths of the lady equestrians, and perhaps even a greater number of gentlemen, ride from the horse's head; a detestable practice which cannot be too highly condemned. I must also warn you against placing too much stress upon the stirrup when your horse is trotting. You must bear in mind that the stirrup is intended for a support for the foot—not to be ridden from. By placing your right leg firmly around the up-pommel, and pressing the left knee against the leaping-head, you can accomplish the rise in your saddle with slight assistance from the stirrup; and this is the proper way to ride. The lazy, careless habit into which many women fall, of resting the entire weight of the body upon the stirrup, not only frequently causes the leathers to snap at most inconvenient times, but is the lamentable cause of half the sore backs and ugly galls from which poor horses suffer so severely.

Having at length perfected yourself in walking, trotting, cantering, and riding from balance, you have only to acquire the art of leaping—and then you will be finished, so far as teaching can make you so. Experience must do the rest.

It is a good thing, when learning, to mount as many different horses as you possibly can; always, of course, taking care that they are sufficiently trained not to endeavour to master you. Horses vary immensely in their action and gait of going: so much so, that if you do not accustom yourself to a variety you will take your ideas from one alone, and will, when put upon a strange animal, find yourself completely at sea.

Do not suffer anything to induce you to take your first leap over a bar or pole similar to those used in schools. The horse sees the daylight under it, knows well that it is a sham, goes at it unwillingly, does not half rise to it, drops his heels when in the air, and knocks it down with a crash,—only to do the same thing a second time, and a third, and a fourth also, if urged to do that which he despises.