When a horse refuses from timidity, and you yet have reason to know that there is nothing whatever wrong with him, take him back a bit from the fence, and send him at it again, sitting well down in your saddle, and catching a determined hold of his head, with the hands held low and the reins well apart. Speak encouragingly to him at the same time, and press him up with your leg on the near side, and the handle of your hunting-crop on the other; but do not on any account cut or spur him, unless you know him to be a rogue—in which case give him plenty of it, in a wise and temperate way; but never enter into a determined warfare with him unless you are absolutely certain that you can come off the victor.
My experience is that once a horse resolutely baulks, with a fixed determination to continue to do so, no man on earth—and certainly no woman—can by any possibility conquer him while on his back. Under such circumstances it will be better to strive to accomplish the desired purpose in some other way; either get off, if you are in a suitable place for it, and that your reins and whip are long enough, and by so doing make him have it, or—which will be better—take him to another part of the same fence, and don’t begin by fighting him, but rather leave it to his honour to carry you generously over, and ten to one he will. I greatly disapprove of punishing a horse severely at one spot; it is highly calculated to give him a thorough hatred of jumping, and to spoil his temper also in a way that may not easily be remedied. Moreover, it is cowardly in the extreme, for the battle is almost entirely one-sided. Were the dumb combatant able to whip and spur and swear in return, the rider would have a very small chance of abusing him for any length of time together; but it is because the creature is ignorant of his own strength and power that he submits himself a slave to man’s too cruel rule.
Now, another hint or two before proceeding to a different subject.
Horses will sometimes refuse through feeling themselves “out of hand,” or being ridden timorously by inexperienced riders. Where this is likely to be the case, such a bridle as a Pelham, for instance, ought not to be employed, but rather a good powerful double bridle, the curb of which may be used when galloping, and the pressure of it released for that of the snaffle when just coming up to a fence.
I have seen horses, many times, refuse through their riders having the horrid practice of throwing up the right arm just at the critical moment of rising: by way, I suppose, of affecting a hard-riding air, or perhaps of obtaining some imaginary balance of the body. The habit is a most hateful one, and frequently causes a horse to “rush,” in cases where he is too bold to baulk or absolutely to refuse. It is also extremely apt to make him swerve, owing to the fact that the pressure is retained on one side of his mouth only, in place of being preserved evenly upon both.
I may say in conclusion that that capital sportsman, Captain Horace Hayes, once told me of somebody, who, by a very clever expedient, cured a horse of refusing water-jumping. The animal, it appears, used always to baulk at water, and then, when pressed, jump right into the middle of it with a terrific splash. One day a happy thought struck his owner, and he at once proceeded to put it in practice. An artificial water-jump was by his direction constructed upon his own lands, and at the bottom of it, quite sunk from view by weighting, he placed a quantity of thorny bushes. When the affair was satisfactorily completed, he had the horse led quietly out, got upon his back, and rode him boldly at the obstacle. The animal tried to stop as usual, and ended (as usual also) by jumping slap into the middle; but on this notable occasion, he scrambled out with astonishing celerity, and ever afterwards fairly flew every water-jump that he happened to come across. The thorns, easily picked out, did him no harm in the world, while the lesson was productive of an immensity of good.
MEANING ROGUERY.