Patroclus and Penelope: A Chat in the Saddle

by Theodore Ayrault Dodge

Some lazy horses find that they can canter as easily as walk and nearly as slowly, but this disjointed, lax-muscled progress is a very different performance from the proud, open action of the generous horse, whose stride is so vigorous that you feel as if he had wings, but who curbs his ardor to your desires, and with the pressure of a silken thread on the bit will canter a five-mile gait.

XXXVIII.

You have probably noticed that Nelly sometimes canters with one shoulder forward and sometimes with the other. Almost all sound horses will change lead of their own accord, but not knowing why. When a horse shies at a strange object, or hops over anything in his path, or gets on new ground, or changes direction, he will often do this. If a horse does not frequently change, it is apt to be on account of an unsound foot, hough, or shoulder, which makes painful or difficult the lead he avoids. But occasionally a sound horse will always lead with the same leg, until taught to change. For a lady the canter is generally easier with the right shoulder leading, and some horses are much easier with one than the other lead. In fact, on the trot, many horses are easier when you rise with the off than when you rise with the near foot, or vice versa; and some writers have said that a horse leads with one or other foot in trotting. But as the trot should be a square and even gait, the peculiarity in question is owing to excess of muscular action in one leg and not to anything approaching the lead in the canter or the gallop.

It is possible to teach a horse to start with either or to change lead in the canter without more flexing of the croup than you can give him on the road; but it is worth your while to put Nelly through some exercises which I will explain to you. It will save time in the end. Their eventual object is so to supple the croup as to render the hind-quarters subject to the rider's will, and absolutely under the control of the horse as directed by him. The flexions of the croup are in reality more important than those of the forehand. Unless a horse's hind-quarters are well under him and so thoroughly suppled as to obey the slightest indication of the rider's leg, he is lacking in the greatest element of his education, if he is to be made a School-horse. At the same time a supple croup and a rigid forehand cannot work in unison. Both should be elastic in equal degree.

For the purpose of beginning the croup flexions, you can best use the stable floor, or other convenient spot, say after mounting as you start, or before dismounting as you return from your ride, or, better, both. And this is what you should do.

Suppose you are standing on the stable floor, mounted. Any other place will do, but you want to be where you are quite undisturbed. Bring Nelly in hand by gathering up the reins quietly, so as not to disturb her equanimity or her position. Perhaps you had better hold the reins in both hands for these exercises. At all times, indeed, it is well that a horse should be kept acquainted with the feel of the two hands. In many respects, and for many purposes, I am an advocate of two hands in riding. Do not misunderstand me on this point. My plea is for such education that one hand may suffice for all needs, when the other can be better employed than with the reins; but I myself often use both my hands, perhaps even half the time.

Nelly being collected, gently press one foot towards her flank, if need be till the spur touches her. She will naturally move away from it by a side step with her hind feet. You should have kept her head so well in hand that she will not have moved her fore feet. So soon as she makes this one side step, stop and caress her. Try once more with the same foot. Same result, and you will again reward her with a kind word. Do not at first try to make her take two steps consecutively. If you do so, she may, having failed to satisfy you with one step, and imagining that you want something else, try to step towards the spur instead of away from it, and you will have thus lost some ground. A horse argues very simply, and if one course does not seem to comply with his rider's will, he almost always and at once tries the other. After a few days, you will find that Nelly will side step very nicely, one or two steps at a time, and before long she will do so in either direction. You cannot, however, consider her as perfect until she can handily complete the circle, with the opposite fore foot immovably planted, in either direction at will, and without disturbing her equilibrium. But this is much harder to do, and if you propose to give Nelly a college education you must first qualify yourself as professor.

You should now at the same time test how well you have taught Penelope to guide by the neck. If you will use the pressure of your legs judiciously, so as to prevent her from moving her hind feet at all, you should be able to describe part of a circle about them by such use of the reins as to make her side step with the fore feet. When she can take two or three steps with fore or hind feet to either side quickly, and at will, keeping the hind or fore feet in place, you have made a very substantial gain in her training.

There can be, of course, only one pivot foot. It is the one opposite the direction in which you are moving the croup or forehand. But to teach Nelly to use the proper pivot foot you must begin much more carefully, and it is perhaps not necessary, if you aspire only to train her for road use, to be so particular.