One can but speak from experience, and my own is this, that since I learned to ride slow at my fences, I have not had one-third of the falls I used to get before. By riding slow, I mean taking a pull about three or four lengths from the fence, and getting your horse to go steady and look. When once you are over, you can go striding away again as fast as you like, and so not lose your "pride of place." Indeed you are far more likely to keep it in that way, than if you gallop over your fences, for before long the over will relapse into through, and then it will be only a question of time how soon you will measure your length on the ground.
Of course one is bound to fall sometimes, however good the horse, however good the horsewoman. Blind fences, wire, a wide place on the far side, or the sun low so that it catches your horse's eyes, are all pretty well bound to knock you over, and then the main thing is to fall clear. Nowadays we are mercifully seldom hung up, thanks to our safety skirts and safety stirrups, without both of which no woman should, in my opinion, be allowed to hunt. It is wise to minimise the dangers of hunting as much as possible, and I think that in one's clothes and saddlery for hunting, everything should be as plain and as safe as possible.
COMET.
(Property of Lady Gerard.)
I believe myself in Champion and Wilton's safety stirrup, and dislike hunting on a saddle without it, though some people "crab" them, and say they come off at the wrong moment. If indeed this does happen, the stirrups must require mending, or else the movement of the rider has caused the leather flap which protects the bar to rise, which of course will set the stirrup leather free. But this is obviously not the stirrup's fault. I also like the arrangement on the off flap, so that you can tighten your own girths, for it is nonsense to say that women's girths should "never need tightening." They need it far more than men's as a rule, and if you can pull them up a hole or two after a gallop, yourself, it is a great convenience, and much better than making some unfortunate man, or his groom, fumble about at a buckle covered with mud below the horse's body, as on other saddles.
As for the safety habits, I believe in the apron skirt, for in that you must fall clear. I have tried several so-called safety habits, and have been hung up both on the near and the off side, but since I took to the apron I have had no more danglings. Of course the drawback to the apron is its appearance off the saddle, when it is certainly too scanty to be becoming. I have, however, overcome that difficulty by having an extra "modesty," made of the very thinnest serge, which I always carry under the near flap of my saddle, so that it does not show, and yet when I get off to ease my horse's back, I can put it on and feel quite independent and happy. I therefore commend this plan to others, as being far handier than buttoning the extra covering inside their habit skirt, and much nicer than going without altogether.
Women, as a rule, are not particular enough about the way they put their boots on. Though they would be very much surprised if they saw a man out hunting with the tags of his boots sticking out, they seem to forget that anything wrong in the way they are put together, is sure to be noticed, and that it is only when our clothes are right that they attract no attention. One should always study, therefore, to be neat and clean-looking beyond everything.
I know many men assert that no woman should ever wear a spur. Of course they are chivalrous enough to add, because women should never ride a horse that needs one. Such a state of things would indeed be delightful, but as there are some in the world still, who would rather go out on anything than not go out at all, and that "anything" is as often as not a refusing brute of a hireling, as cunning as a monkey, I cannot agree with the opinion. In saying this, however, please note I do not mean by a spur, that horrible sort of a dagger which works with a spring, and is commonly sold as a "lady's spur," for of all the dangerous and cruel inventions, that is about the worst. I mean the ordinary small man's spur, with the rowels blunted, and of course this should only be worn by those who know how to use it, never by a beginner, or indeed by any but a really fine horsewoman, for if the foot is not carried in the right position you are sure to touch your horse with it unwittingly, and if you make a mistake you will probably have to pay for it. If your horse is very hot and eager, too, you will be better without it.