When a lot of riders find themselves in this hopeless attitude, they generally, according to their amount of activity, crawl, jump, or vault from their saddles to descend on foot, which they soon find very little improves their case, for the heels of their boots not being, like horse-shoes, concave, take insufficient hold of the turf; and thus while they are slipping, sliding, and tottering in the descent, each linked to a quadruped that is bothering him to death, if, feeling a little alarmed, they resolve to stop for a moment or two, their impatient horses, unable to advance and unwilling to stand still, often compromise the matter by running round their masters, with the chance of rolling them, like ninepins, down the hill.
In galloping for many hours, and especially for many days, as soon as the muscles of the rider, by getting tired, lose their obstinacy, it becomes impossible for him, if he sits upright, to prevent his body undulating, to the infinite relief of both parties, with every movement of the horse; whereas, if, like an English jockey, whose seat is well adapted for galloping at the utmost speed for a few minutes, he rides like a frog on a shovel, he inflicts upon his whole frame, as well as upon the poor animal that carries him, an amount of unnecessary fatigue which prematurely tires both.
For the foregoing reasons if gentlemen sportsmen who occupy on the road and the hunting-field this false position, would but allow Mr. Calcraft, in his peculiar way, to lift them about half a dozen times a few inches into the air, and then, as a tallow-chandler dips his candles, lower them gently, easily, and perpendicularly to their saddles, they would find themselves promoted in the world to a seat on horseback which they would never wish to abandon.
As, however, our readers, we fear, must have become very tired of the saddle, we will now relieve them from hogskin, to submit to them a very few practical observations on the management of the bridle, the ordinary uses of which, as everybody knows, are twofold, namely, first to guide a horse, and secondly to restrain, or, when requisite, to stop him.
As it is the disposition of a horse, when mounted, to go fast, and as it is the disposition of a man to pull at any thing in this world as little as possible, curb-bits and curb-chains (as their names truly denote) have been invented, by which the animal in all his movements on parade or on the road is slightly thrown on his haunches, with his head raised more or less above its natural level. In this position his eyes are of course proportionally elevated, and as there exists no obstruction on the macadamized roads, &c., on which he travels, he soon ceases to look downwards; and although, if he then happens to pass over a little hole, he may put a foot into it, or may slightly blunder over half a shovelfull of loose stones which had escaped his observation, yet, if he has good action, and a tolerable rider, he earns the character of being a "capital hack."
Now to metamorphose "a hack" into "a hunter" is principally effected by the bridle, and yet the great difficulty of the art is to learn not how much, but how little to use it; in short, a considerable portion of what the bridle has done has to be undone. Accordingly, instead of being encouraged to travel on his haunches with his fore legs lightly touching the ground, the latter must be required to bear the greater portion of the burden, which it is the duty of the hind legs to propel. The head has to be brought down to its proper level; and to induce or rather to oblige the horse to make his eyes the lantern of his feet, to study geology instead of astronomy, he should be slowly ridden, with a loose rein, over every little hole, grip, or heap that would be likely to throw a hack down. Whenever he can be made to stumble (if the rider feels that he will not actually fall), the reins should instantly be dropped. In like manner he should be walked for several days over the roughest ground that can be found, particularly land that has been excavated to obtain the substratum and left in holes. With a perfectly loose rein he should be gently trotted, gently cantered, and gently galloped over a surface of this description, the rider always dropping the rein when he blunders. Vegetius, in describing the horsemanship of the Parthians in the time of Xerxes, states that in order to make their horses sure-footed over rough, broken ground, they placed on a space of level ground a number of wooden troughs of different heights, filled with earth, over which in galloping they had many falls.
Under similar treatment, the strength, activity, intelligence, and eyesight of the animal will, as in a wild state, cordially be combined by him to protect himself from the degradation as well as punishment of falling; and so ample and sufficient are these powers, that the rider will soon find, that instead of having to hold his horse up, it has become out of his power to throw him down. In fact, under the guidance of nature, rather than of man, "the hack" in a very short period, and without going over a fence of any sort or kind, may thus be made competent to follow hounds across any country in the United Kingdom; while, on the other hand, the nag that had only been taught in a riding-school or in a dealer's yard to jump neatly over bars, gates, and hurdles, would, most particularly to the neck of his rider, prove to be infinitely worse than useless.
Of course a horse is not a perfect hunter until he has had a small amount (for he does not require much) of experience in leaping; but as, with the exception of water, every horse is able, willing, and eager to jump, generally speaking, more than is desired, his rider has merely to teach the noble animal beneath him to add to his valour just enough discretion to induce him to look, not before, but while he leaps.
A hunter when following hounds is so excited, that if, in addition to his own eagerness, he be hurried at his fences, he rushes more and more recklessly at them, until he gets into needless trouble. On the other hand, just as he approaches every fence, if he be always patted on the neck, and gently restrained, he feels satisfied that he is to be allowed to do the job; and accordingly, curtailing his stride as he approaches, he does it not only cleverly, but without any waste of exertion, which, to use a common hunting-field expression, "he may want before the day's over."