Ladies in the Field: Sketches of Sport

by Unknown

Always go quite slow off the top of a hill. Take up your leaders before you get to it. You can get safely down any hill, no matter how steep, provided you start slow enough off the top. The pace is bound to increase the further down you get, so it is wise not to start too fast, otherwise you end in an uncomfortable sort of gallop, with the coach overhauling the horses all the way. Sometimes it is a good plan to increase your pace, supposing there is a hill to be got up just in front of you; in that case, get your horses into a gallop going down so as to get a run at the next hill, and the impetus will carry you up much easier if you have a real good swing at it. Of course a long hill is a different thing, especially if it is off the flat, and in every case your horses must be considered.

It is important that horses should be brought in cool, therefore one should do the last mile of the journey slowly and quietly that they may not be too hot on arriving at their stable.

It is a bad thing to keep horses waiting at the start, they are not generally gifted with much more patience than we are, and it is worse to check them once they are on the move, therefore it is best, when all the passengers are on board, that the last to get up should sing out "Right," to let the coachman know they are really ready to be off, and so prevent the risk of being implored to "wait just one moment" for the forgotten coat or umbrella, or the thousand and one things people always do forget until the very last instant, notwithstanding what is usually the fact that they have been dawdling about hours before hand, with nothing else to do but to prepare themselves for the cold and rain which, in this climate, is about the only thing one can count on.

Once off, try to leave your reins alone as much as possible; it is irritating to your horses' mouths, and looks bad, to be always fidgeting and pulling at either one rein or the other. Don't let your leaders do all or nearly all the work, and going down hill don't let them do any, but catch hold of them pretty short just before you get to the brow of the hill and pull them back—a tiny bit on one side to prevent the wheelers treading on their heels.

In taking up and shortening your reins, many people say you should always push them from in front with the right-hand, and not draw them through the fingers from behind, though the latter way often seems the most natural, and all coachmen do not agree on this point. It looks better to drive with one hand, the left, and to keep the right for the whip and an occasional assistance only; but a woman must have wrists of iron to drive a team with one hand for long, especially as the wrist should always be bent in driving as well as in riding. Driving with straight wrists is altogether wrong. One thing never to be forgotten is always to make your wheelers follow your leaders, thereby you can generally assume an air of nonchalance, and pretend that you intended the sudden deviation off the middle of the road caused by the digression of the leaders, if your wheelers immediately follow in their footsteps. Should it be only a slight digression, a pull at the two reins between your first and second fingers both at once, will put them right immediately, as that gets at your off leader and near wheeler at the same time, and is a very quick way of getting the team straight again. It is better form not to use the break unless it is absolutely necessary. People bore one so who are always putting their drags on and off. I do not mean the "shoe," as that, of course, must be put on, on occasions when the hill is steep to prevent the coach running on to the horses.

I remember once driving with my father in the Fife country, where the roads resemble switchback railways more than Christian highways. We had arrived at the top of a very steep pitch, and the grooms having slipped on the shoe, we were trundling serenely down, when, just as we reached the middle of the hill where the whole impetus of the coach was at its worst, snap went the chain and away rolled the shoe off down the hill on its own account, of course the sudden release sent the coach with a great lurch on the top of the wheelers, while we all clung on, craning our necks to see what was going to happen next. Quick as thought out flew the whip thong, and in an instant my father had touched the horses all round and we were flying down the hill at racing pace. We got to the bottom all safe and had galloped to the top of the next hill before he took a pull. It was very exciting for the time, and the only thing to be done under the circumstances to keep the horses going quicker than the coach, but not an experiment one would care to try with an inferior coachman.

We have all been mercifully blessed with nerve, and many a time has our courage been severely put to the test. We had a very near shave one day some years ago coming back from Ascot. We were driving all the way home to London after the last day's racing. Our off leader was a very violent, hot horse, called "The Robber," who kept raking and snatching at his bridle from morning till night. As we were passing through a little town—Brentford—we tried to worm our way between the pavement and a baker's cart, which was proceeding slowly in front and giving us very little room to pass.

This irritated The Robber, who, making a wild bounce forward, wrenched the bridle clean off the wheeler's head! (His rein was passed through the upright terret on the top of the wheeler's bridle, and must have got caught somehow). The bridle flopped against the pole, which frightened the whole lot and they started off at a gallop. The baker, seeing this, thought we were anxious to race him, and set sail too. Naturally his increasing pace excited our horses more than ever, and the three with bridles pulled their hardest, while the loose one pegged along with his head in the air.

The off-horse being bitless, it was only the near-side rein that took effect on their mouths, so the end was that we edged nearer and nearer to the pavement, till, at last, the leaders turned and jumped on to it. At the same moment Captain Carnegy (who, luckily, was just sitting behind the box) leapt to the ground, and made a grab at the loose wheeler, catching him by the nose, and so saved us from some trouble. The leaders, in the meantime, had run straight into a draper's shop, and were curveting about on the top of four or five school children, whom they had hustled to the ground.

It looked very nasty for a minute, but they were mercifully extracted all unhurt, and a few coins soon mollified their gaping parents.