I believe a great deal in having confidence, and in the power of imparting the same feeling to your horse; also, in keeping both him and yourself in perfect good temper. Ride him with judgment, and he will soon learn to understand exactly what it is that you want of him. Never take him too fast at wide ditches, or at fences that necessitate a rise; in all such instances suffer him to measure his stride;—give him time—don’t hustle him—(an unwise and horrid habit), let him gather his hind legs well under him, and on no account hold him hard on the curb. Remember, likewise, that you must always leave him sufficient length of rein to enable him to extend his neck.
I am against going over fast, even at water, unless the place is a formidably wide one. I think that undue haste must prevent a horse from measuring his stride, and that this is the reason why animals so frequently take-off too soon, and consequently either over-jump themselves, or land short. They have done it with myself, many times, in the early days of my riding career; there is scarcely a branch of the Lara in which I have not been ducked, and surely experientia docet. Moreover, a horse cannot possibly last in anything like a fast run, unless he is kept collected. A sprawler very soon comes to the end of his tether, while fair-and-easy goes far in the day. This is particularly the case where ridge and furrow, or marshy ground, have to be traversed.
You should accustom your horse to do small places slowly; blind fences and ugly trappy obstacles must be negotiated with deliberation, for the very worst falls are got through hustling animals at such things as these.
You should never take your horse’s attention for a moment from his work. A bad rider comes “fighting up” to a fence: spurring, striking, and jagging at his horse’s mouth—and somehow the good riders are not sorry when the fretted animal jerks his tormentor off, and gallops away without him. A mind at ease and undisturbed is absolutely essential to a fencer; to strike or spur him at a critical moment will probably throw him out of his stride, and may be the means also of throwing the rider out of the saddle.
There are certain varieties of jumps which it will be well to consider in detail, especially as beginners are apt to think that if they succeed with tolerable credit in getting over a few small cuttings in the country, they are fully qualified to take foremost place in the ranks of fair Dianas.
In timber-jumping, to begin with, you must remember that a horse quite fresh from his stable will naturally be able to accomplish much more than when half pumped out; and as a fall over timber is much nastier for a lady than almost any other description of casualty, I strongly advise you not to urge an animal that has jumped, say, four feet of timber with you at the first go off, to do more than three, or three and a-half, at the second. The reason is simply this: to accomplish timber safely a horse must rise well at it; this he cannot do if at all pumped out, and the consequence is that he hits it with his knees, or chest, and gives himself and his rider a terrific fall. There are fences that may be taken at a swing, others that can be scrambled over, and others again that must be negotiated deliberately, requiring more coolness than courage to accomplish the doing of them safely—but timber must be got over in thoroughly hunter-like fashion, or a terrific crash will be the result. High stiff rails, or gates, have more perils for riders than any other obstacle that can be met with in the hunting-field, not even excepting walls; for many hunters will go collectedly and steadily at these latter, when a four or five-barred gate, with the daylight showing through and letting them see what is on the other side will be either refused, or done in decidedly slovenly fashion, in which case the latter state is infinitely worse than the first.
In taking an up-jump, throw your head and shoulders well back, so that you may escape being struck in the face, and leave your horse unlimited headroom, for the danger of a leap of this description is, that the animal may not get his quarters sufficiently under him to land safely on his legs, and may in consequence be in danger of going back: in such case, if he is in the slightest degree trammelled about the mouth, he will be unable to stretch his neck or make the necessary struggle to recover himself.
Many ladies have a horror of going over water, the dread of immersion being no doubt the paramount cause of it; but I have always thought that a good wide brook, or a narrow branch of a river, was about the safest of all obstacles to encounter. In saying this, I of course mean where the banks are sound, for if either the taking-off or landing-ground happens to be marshy or rotten, there is
nothing more conducive to a ducking.
