2. If a domestic horse that has been handled, fondled, but never ridden, be suddenly saddled and mounted, the rider has greater difficulties to encounter than those just described: for the animal is not only gifted by nature with all the propensities of the wild horse to reject man, but, from being better fed, he has greater strength to indulge in them; besides which he enjoys the immense advantage of being in a civilized, or, in plainer terms, an enclosed country. Accordingly, instead of being forced to run away, his rider is particularly afraid lest he should do so, simply because he knows that the remedy which would cure the wild horse, would probably kill him. In fact, the difference to the rider between an open and an enclosed field of battle is exactly that which a naval officer feels in scudding in a gale of wind out of sight of land, and in being caught among sandbanks and rocks in a narrow channel.
3. Of all descriptions of horses, wild and tame, by far the most difficult to ride is that young British thorough-bred colt of two or three years old that has been regularly "broken in" by himself, without giving the slightest warning, to jump away sideways, spin round, and at the same moment kick off his rider. The feat is a beautiful and well-arranged combination of nature and of art. Like the pugilistic champion of England—Tom Sayers—he is a professional performer, gifted with so much strength and activity, and skilful in so many quick, artful tricks and dodges, that any country practitioner who comes to deal with him is no sooner up than down, to rise from his mother earth with a vague, bewildered, incoherent idea as to what had befallen him, or "how he got there."
If a horse of this description and a wild one were to be mounted simultaneously, each by an equally good rider, in an unenclosed, uncultivated region, both the quadrupeds probably at the same moment would be seen to run away: the Briton for ever, to gain his liberty; the other quadruped, just as surely, to lose it!
Having now sufficiently discussed the character and conduct of the horse, we will presume to offer, or rather to bequeath to our readers, a very few observations as regards his rider.
Seat on a Horse.
The best position of a man on horseback is, of course, that which is most agreeable to both animals, and which, from its ease and flexibility, as they skim together over the surface of the earth, apparently combines them into one.
Like everything in Nature, the variety of seats is infinite. They may, however, generically be divided into two classes:
1. In the great plains of South America, in which it may truly be stated that for every male inhabitant above five or six years of age Nature maintains at no cost, no tax, and at no trouble to him, a stud of horses whose number is legion, the rider sits almost perpendicularly, with the great toe of each foot resting very lightly on, and often merely touching its small triangular stirrup, his legs grasping the horse's sides slightly or tightly, as prosperous or adverse circumstances may require.
In this attitude, which may be said to be that of standing astride over rather than sitting upon the saddle, the pivot upon which the rider, gracefully bending his body with a ball and socket movement, turns—in throwing his lasso, in thrusting his lance forwards on either side, or in looking behind him—is what is termed by sporting men his "fork."