Patroclus and Penelope: A Chat in the Saddle

by Theodore Ayrault Dodge

As I shorten the reins, 'tis indeed a pleasure to see your head come up, neck arched, eye brightening, alternate ears moving back to catch your master's word, feet at once gathered under you, and nerves and muscles on keenest tension. Every motion is springy, elastic, bold, and free, as full of power as it is of ease. No wonder, Patroclus, that eyes so often turn to watch you. No wonder that you seem conscious that they do. For though we both know that the first test of the horse is performance, yet having that, there is pleasure to us both in your graceful gaits.

To give the reins the least possible shake will send you into the most ecstatic of running walks, as fast as one needs to go, and so easy that it is a constant wonder how you do it. This is no common amble or bumping pace, but the true four beat rack. And as you toss your head and champ your bit, Patroclus, with the pleasure of your accelerated motion, how well you seem to know the comfort of your rider.

IV.

This running walk or rack, by the way, is one of the most delightful of gaits. Its universal adoption in the South by every one who can buy a racker is due to the roads, which, for many months of the year, are so utterly impassable that you have to pick your way in and out of the woods and fields on either side, and rarely meet a stretch where you can start into a swinging trot. But a horse will fall from a walk into a rack, or vice versa, with the greatest of ease to himself and rider, and if the stretch is but a hundred yards will gain some distance in that short bit of ground. If you have a fifty mile ride over good roads in comfortable weather, perhaps a smart trot, if easy, of course alternating with the walk, is as good a single gait as you can ride. But you need to trot or canter a goodly stretch, not to shorten rein at every dozen rods, for the transition from a walk to either of these gaits or back again, though slight, is still an exertion; while from the walk to the rack and back the change is so imperceptible that one is made conscious of it only by the patter of the horse's feet. Here again, the country's need, roads, and climate have bred a most acceptable gait. But it has made the Southerner forget what an inspiriting thing a swinging twelve-mile trot can be along a smooth and pretty road; and you cannot give away a trotting horse for use in the saddle south of Mason and Dixon. The rack soon grows into the single-foot, which only differs from it in being faster, and the latter is substituted for the trot. To go a six or eight mile gait, holding a full glass of water in the hand, and not to spill a drop, is the test of perfection in the racker. And for a lazy feeling day, or for hot weather, anywhere, it is the acme of comfort. Or it is, indeed, a useful gait in winter, when it is too cold for a clipped horse to walk and your nag has yet not stretched his legs enough to want to go at sharper speed. It must, however, be acknowledged that it is very rare that a horse will rack perfectly as well as trot. He is apt to get the gaits mixed.

A rack is half way between a pace and a trot. In the pace, the two feet of each side move and come down together; in the trot, the two alternate feet do so. In the running walk, or in the single-foot, each hind foot follows its leader at the half interval, no two feet coming to the ground together, but in regular succession, so as to produce just twice as many foot-falls as a trot or a pace. Hence the one, two, three, four, patter of the horse gives to the ear the impression of very great rapidity, when really moving at only half the apparent speed. The result of the step is a swaying, easy back, which you can sit with as much ease as a walk. Rackers will go a six-mile gait, single-footers much faster. I once owned a single-footing mare, who came from Alexander's farm and was sired by Norman, who could single-foot a full mile in three minutes. As a rule, the speed is not much more than half that rate. And either a rack or single-foot is apt to spoil the square trot; or if you break a horse to trot, you will lose the other gaits. A perfect all-day racker or a speedy single-footer can scarcely be aught else.

V.

I did not mean to apply that rule to you, Patroclus! We both of us know better. For the exceptional horse can learn to rack or single-foot without detriment to his other paces, if he be not kept upon these gaits too long at any time.

Half a mile ahead of us is the little grass-grown lane, where we can indulge in a canter or a frolicsome gallop. Shall we quicken our speed a trifle? Simply a "Trot, Pat!" and on the second step you fall into as square and level a trot as ever horse could boast. I know how quickly you obey my voice, old boy, and but one step from my word I am ready to catch the first rise, and without the semblance of a jar we are in a full sharp trot. How I love to look over your shoulder, Patroclus, and see your broad, flat knee come swinging up, and showing at every step its bony angles beyond the point of your shoulder; though, indeed, your shoulder is so slanting that the saddle sits well back, and your rider is too old a soldier to lean much to his trot. And you will go six to—I had almost said sixteen—miles an hour at this gait, nor vary an ounce of pressure on your velvety mouth. How is it, Patroclus, that you catch the meaning of my hands so readily?