Riding for Ladies: With Hints on the Stable

by Mrs. Power O'Donoghue

I think I have now entered into all particulars respecting your ordinary riding gear. That for hunting will occupy a chapter later on. Bear in mind that the more plainly you are dressed, the quieter your appearance, and the less obtrusive your style, the more ladylike you will appear, and consequently the more to be commended and admired. It is only horsebreakers and women of inferior social standing who seek to attract attention by conspicuous action and costume. A lady shows best that she is one by neither doing nor wearing anything that is in the smallest degree calculated to provoke remark.

I have really often thought that the reason why many ladies look so much better in their riding-habits than in ordinary walking attire, is that there is so much less opportunity, when so dressed, for wearing what is unbecoming, or for conforming to silly fashions which only serve to distort and destroy all the beauties of the human form divine. On horseback we are spared the unsightlinesses of dress improvers, high heels, and high shoulders! The natural outline of the figure is revealed to us, and with it we can find but little fault. “God made man in His own image,” said a country preacher to whom I listened a short time since, “but woman makes an image of herself!”

CHAPTER VII.
BITTING.

Having now provided yourself with a suitable mount for road and park purposes, and likewise a supply of riding apparel sufficient to answer all purposes until you come to hunt, it will be necessary for you to turn your attention to the interesting subjects of bitting, saddling, and general turning out. These things ought of necessity to precede the actual riding—for you certainly cannot mount your steed until he has been saddled and bridled, and to know how to accomplish this yourself is in the highest degree important.

In the present day, when equestrianism is not only a popular amusement but amounts almost to a craze, it is astonishing to find the amount of ignorance that prevails among riders upon subjects with which they ought to be at least tolerably well acquainted, before laying claim to the terms “horsemen” and “horsewomen.” In no department that I can think of, or name, is this lamentable want of knowledge so clearly displayed as in the important one of bitting. That ladies are not, as a rule, very conversant with the subject is scarcely to be wondered at, for most lady-riders give no thought to anything on earth save the pleasure of the motion, and the fit of their habits and gloves. They have undergone a certain description of superficial training, which just enables them to know how to sit, and how to hold the reins between their fingers, but the real pleasure of being thoroughly en rapport with their mount—knowing what bit he will go best in, and feeling conscious that he is not enduring torture from being wrongly bridled or saddled—are things altogether denied them. It is precisely the same principle on which ladies execute showy pieces on the piano, without at the same time having the smallest knowledge of the theory of music, or any idea of why it is that pressure upon the pedals is capable of altering the sound. It is a sorry fact, but a certain one, that nine-tenths of the ladies who ride in the Row—pulling equally, as they often do, upon both reins—would stare at you in helpless amazement, or blush “celestial rosy red,” if asked to describe the difference in action between the curb bit and the snaffle. They do not know. Nobody has ever told them, because it has never occurred to them to ask. They are simply aware that there are two leathers, attached by some unknown means to the horse’s head, and that they are supposed to hold these nicely between their fingers, and look as charming as they can; but what the leathers are for, or why there are two of them, or yet, why some other ladies of their acquaintance ride with a single rein while they have been given a double one, are things of which they have not the very faintest notion. Lip-straps, cheek-pieces, throat-lashes, ports, cannons, &c., terms with which even moderately skilled horsewomen are familiar—have never been so much as heard of, or even inquired about. The existence of this species of ignorance among lady-riders is not hearsay. I speak from practical knowledge, having proved it upon many different occasions. “Pooh, nonsense; what do I care about your old leathers!” laughed a merry-hearted Cork girl to whom I was once striving to explain some necessary matters; “I just hold on, and let the beast carry me—and what more on earth do I want?” And away she went, helter-skelter, after the hounds, as she spoke—holding on, true enough, to both reins, with a good firm grip; and the beast did carry her, to some purpose too, up to a big drain—and finding his mouth unfairly dealt with in the taking-off, landed her deftly into it, and ungallantly galloped away.

With men—those who ride, I mean—ignorance concerning bitting ought never to exist, yet I have been fairly astounded at finding out how very little many of them know about the matter. An officer, who was considered a good man to hounds, and who owned a couple of racers to boot, looked actually quite puzzled when it was observed to him one day that he was riding his hunter in a very severe bit (a saw-mouth bridoon, attached to a snaffle), and said, “By George, I don’t know. I suppose my confounded servant put some queer thing or another on him, for the beggar won’t go a yard!” He had actually mounted his horse and set out for a day’s hunting without so much as casting a glance at the animal’s head. Nor was his by any means an isolated case.

Now a practical word or two about some of the bridles most generally in use—beginning with the common, smooth-jointed snaffle, which has ever been my favourite bit. This, when sufficiently wide and large, forms an absolutely perfect bridle, and its action is extremely simple, restraining the horse by pressure on the bars of the mouth when his head is carried more or less perpendicularly, and on the corners when the head is lifted or lowered. Owing to the centre of the mouthpiece being jointed, there is very little pressure on the tongue, which is one of the many points in favour of this admirable bridle.

COMMON SNAFFLE.