Patroclus and Penelope: A Chat in the Saddle

Everything which I have told you can be put to use by a lady as well as a man. But a lady needs preliminary teaching in a school, because it is neither pleasant nor safe for her to be on the road quite untaught. But having acquired a seat and some little control of her horse, she can apply all the rules I have given you, using her whip as a man would use his right leg. The short skirts of the day enable her to use her left leg as readily as you can.

The gallop comes of itself, and needs but care that your own position is good and does not lose firmness or interfere with your hands. Better sit down to the gallop. The jockey habit of galloping in the stirrups is rarely of use except as a means of changing your own seat and sometimes of easing your horse across ploughed fields or bad ground. It is never proper for the road.

XLIII

Having got thus far, you will surely want to teach the mare to jump and yourself to sit her firmly when she does so. Perhaps you may choose to defer the tedious processes described and go at jumping at once.

If you think you can sit a fairish jump, probably the best plan is to follow the hounds in a quiet way some day, if it happens to be in their season. A great many horses will jump imitatively when in company and do pretty clean simple work. There is a bit of a chance for a blunder this way, because a horse unused to jumping cannot gauge his work and may come down. But by taking him slowly at his fences, perhaps at a walk, there is comparatively little risk. It is the exceptional horse who will jump well in cold blood, like Patroclus in the illustrations. But any horse can be taught to do so in a measure, and no horse can be called a hunter unless he will do so cleverly.

If you first go out with the hounds, there is some danger that if your seat is insecure you will drag Nelly back from her leaps, and worry or confuse her so much that you will lose a deal of ground. Though, indeed, she will be less readily spoiled if she gets excited by the chase, than if put at equally high jumps as a lesson, because her eagerness to keep up with the other horses will exceed her annoyance at your unsteady hands.

I would advise you, on the whole, to have a little practice in some quiet spot all by yourself. A horse who will only jump in company is far from perfect in this accomplishment. A well-trained horse should jump a three and a half foot gate or an eight foot ditch at any time as willingly as start into a sharp gallop.

I assume that Nelly knows nothing of leaping. Wander off into the fields somewhere. Find a place where there is a gate or fence of several bars. Let all these down but one or two, – leaving enough in height for Nelly to step over if she lifts her feet way up, – say twenty inches. A fallen log is an excellent thing to try on. Make her cross and recross the bar or log a number of times, by persuasion only. Any horse will step over a high bar if you stand him in front of it and encourage him. Don't scold or strike her. Nothing disheartens the learning or courageous horse so much.

From the days of Xenophon down, any one who loses his temper in training a horse, or uses any but gentle means, violates the precept, practice, and experience of all successful horsemen.

"But never to approach a horse in a fit of anger is the one great precept and maxim of conduct in regard to the treatment of a horse; for anger is destitute of forethought, and consequently often does that of which the agent must necessarily repent." Xen. Horsemanship, vi. 13.

Curiously enough, in spite of this rule, Xenophon advocates the use of the whip and spur in teaching a horse to leap – the gravest error, I think, of this exceedingly sensible horseman.

It has been said that you should not make a horse keep on jumping the same obstacle, because he sees no reason for doing it, and feels that you are making a fool of him. But my experience is that a horse likes to jump at any well-known thing, if he has been petted or rewarded for cleverly clearing it. A horse who has been given a bit of sugar or apple after jumping is far from feeling that he has been made a fool of, even if he is jumped a dozen times over the same obstacle. And every horse goes with double confidence at a thing he has leaped before. It is the horse who knows the country who makes easiest headway and quickest after hounds, and is oftenest in at the death. At the same time it is true that a horse can be spoiled by leaping him in cold blood much more easily than when in the company of many others. And it is also true that if a horse is ridden at different things in succession, if such can be readily found, he learns to take whatever comes in his path more handily than if he is confined to only one jump. Still, after once learning to jump any one obstacle, the lesson is easily carried farther by riding across simple bits of country.

As soon as Nelly walks right over the bar without hesitation or any pause longer than enough to lift her feet, walk or jog her up to it a bit faster. She will soon find that it is less exertion for her to rise to it with both feet at once, and hop over it, than to lift her feet so high. As soon as she has caught this idea, reward her with a nibble of something, for she has made her first step in learning the lesson. A little sugar, salt, or a bit of apple, or a green leaf or two, or a bunch of grass you will find to be wonderful incentives.

Don't raise the bar too soon or too much. When Nelly is quite familiar with the small jump at a slow gait, trot her at it. Most horses can jump well from a trot. In fact some of the best riders always trot up to timber. It is a temptation of Providence to try to fly a stiff bit of timber, unless you have a wonderful jumper who knows you well, or unless you are at the beginning of a run, when your horse is in his best condition; and Providence should never be tempted except when a considerable result lies trembling in the balance.

When Nelly takes the obstacle cleverly from a trot, canter her at it, and gradually she will take pleasure in hopping over it, particularly if she now and then gets a tidbit at the other side. Moreover, this tidbit will accomplish another object. It will teach your mare not to rush as soon as she clears her fence, which a horse who is whipped at his jumps almost always does. By insensible degrees and within a few weeks you will get Nelly to jump three feet high, or even three and a half. If she can do this in cold blood, "clane and cliver," she will be able to do anything within reason which you need when in company. You can try her in just the same way at small, then at large ditches, always keeping to the familiar place and rewarding success, until Nelly learns what jumping in the abstract is. After that, try her at all kinds of things in moderation.

There is more than a grain of good sense in the idea that a horse does not want to be made to jump unnecessarily. And it is true that some horses get stubborn if always put at the same obstacle without an object. But if a horse associates praise and reward with jumping, he will be ready for it at any proper time. You should, however, avoid making a tired horse leap except when it is absolutely necessary. Let him do this work when he is fresh. You of course know that a really stanch horse is usually fresher after five or ten miles of average speed than at the start. The best of stayers are often quite dull until they get their legs stretched and their bodies emptied. This particularly applies to aged horses. And perhaps the very worst time to jump a horse is when he is just out of the stall.

XLIV

How about holding the reins in the jump? Well, now we come to debatable ground. To-day's fashion tells you to use both hands. The old-fashioned English habit, as well as the necessary habit of the soldier and of all other riders who have work to do, is to use the bridle hand alone. I prefer the latter habit. Only a half-trained horse needs both hands. A good jumper ought to want to jump, not have to be steered and shoved over an obstacle. I am willing to allow that some brutes have to be so steered; but if a horse is well-taught, likes to leap, and can be safely ridden at an obstacle with one hand, why use two? If a man is astride a horse who must be steered, let him use both. If he can teach his horse to be true at his jumps with but one hand, both will have gained a point, and be one hand better off. For two hands may be used at any time, if called for.

A sound and vigorous horse, who has been properly taught to jump, will take anything which he feels that his rider himself means to go over. If you want utterly to spoil your Nelly, ride her at things you yourself feel uncertain about clearing. She will quickly find out your mood from your hands. The only rule for keeping your mare true to her work is never to ride at anything which you have not made up your mind to carry her over. Be true to yourself in your ambition to jump, and Nelly will be true to you. It is usually the horses that have been fooled by uncertain hearts and tremulous hands who fail you at the critical moment, or who have to be steered over their fences. So long as your horse has jumping ability, and you have a "warm heart and a cool head," you can go anywhere.

A generation ago no one was ashamed of even letting his right arm fly up now and then, for it was not in olden times the extremity of "bad form" which it is now pronounced to be. Look over Doyle or Leech for proof of this. But the main argument against the unnecessary use of two hands is that you may absolutely require your right hand for something else, while it certainly argues a poor training or character in a horse to make it a sine qua non for you to employ both at every leap. Of what avail would a trooper be in a charge, with his horse bounding over dismounted companions, dead, or, worse still, wounded and struggling horses, and all manner of obstacles, if he had to steer his horse with his sword-hand? And not infrequently you will find, in the peaceful charge after harmless Reynard, that your right arm is better employed in fending off blows from stray branches or in opening a passage through a close cover, than in holding on to one of your reins. Have you never been through a bullfinch where you must part the clustering branches if you were to scramble through and avoid the wondrous wise man's bramble-bush experience? Have you never felt your hat going at the instant your horse was taking off? Have you never seen just the neatest place in the hedge obstructed by a single branch, which your right arm could thrust aside as you flew over? Have you never, O my hunting brother, had to make an awfully sudden grab at your horse's mane?

And while I am happy to defer to the opinion of some of the most noted steeple-chasers and first-flight men in this controversy, when they call single-hand jumping a hateful practice, and ascribe to it half the bad habits of the hunter and the crooked seats of the rider, I am satisfied to look at the portraits of such wonderful equestrians as Captain Percy Williams, or Tom Clarke, huntsman of the Old Berkshire, and a dozen others that could be instanced, all using the bridle hand alone, and some of them even forgetting that it is "bad form" to let the right elbow leave the side. Bad form, forsooth! These portraits would scarcely have been thus painted if the habit had met the disapproval of the celebrated horsemen in question.

So far as you are concerned, Tom, you will learn while Penelope is learning. Use your snaffle bit alone. A man needs light hands to jump with a curb, or else his horse must have a leather mouth. Whenever Nelly has made up her mind to jump, let her have her head. Don't try to tell her when to take off. Leave that to her, and don't flurry her while she is making up her mind when and where to do it. Leave that to the very experienced rider. If she is jumping from a stand, or slow trot, you can say a word of encouragement to her, but by no means do so at a gallop, when within a stride or two of the jump. Be ready, however, to draw rein sufficient to give her some support as soon as she has landed.

You will find that when Nelly jumps, the strong and quick extension of her hind legs will throw you into the air and forward. To obviate this settle down in your seat, in other words, "curl your sitting bones under you," use your legs (not your heels), and lean back just enough not to get thrown from your saddle. Don't try any of the fancy ideas about first leaning forward to ease her croup while she takes off. You will come a cropper if you do. Lean back. It will not take you long to find out how much, and the leaning forward will come of itself.

XLV

It is often alleged by old cross-country riders that the best hunters land on their hind feet. Many no doubt land so quickly and so well gathered that they give to the eye the appearance of so doing. But I doubt if photography would really show them to land other than on one fore foot, instantly relieved by the second one planted a short stride farther on, and followed by the corresponding hind ones in succession. Plate XIV. shows what I mean, and the same thing appears in all the Muybridge photographs. But your eye can by no means catch Patroclus in this position. His hind legs seem to follow his fore legs much more closely; and he always lands cleverly and so well gathered as to make not the slightest falter in his new stride. It is also said that the best water-jumpers skim and do not rise much to the jump. But I fancy that every horse rises more to water than the fancy drawn pictures show. Gravitation alone, it seems, would make this necessary. Photography would prove the fact, but there are probably not enough such photographs extant to-day to decide upon the question.

You may read a dozen volumes about jumping, Tom, but a dozen jumps will teach you a dozen times as much as the printer's ink. And remember that a standing or an irregular jump, even if small, or that the leap of a pony, is harder to sit than a well-timed jump of twice the dimensions on a full grown horse. I have been nearly dismounted in teaching a new horse much oftener than in the hunting-field. It is only when your horse comes down, or when a bad jumper rushes at his fence and then swerves or refuses suddenly, that there is any grave danger of a fall in riding to hounds.

Don't be afraid of a fall. It won't hurt you much in nineteen cases out of twenty. If you find you are really going and can't save yourself, don't stiffen. Try to flop, the more like a drunken man the better. It is rigid muscles which break bones. This is a hard rule to learn. Many falls alone teach its uses. A suggestion will by no means do so. But hold on to your reins for your life, Tom, when you fall. This is one of the most important things to remember. It has saved many a man from being dragged.

A man who brags that he has never had a fall may be set down as having never done much hard riding. Many a time and oft have the very best riders and their steeds entered the next field in Tom Noddy's order:

And yet how few bones there are broken for the number of falls. A good shaking up is all there is to it, as a rule. When a man mellows into middle life – (how much farther on in years middle life is when we are well past forty than when we are twenty-five!) – he is apt to feel discreet, because conscious that a bad spill may hurt him worse than in his youth, and he will look upon a "hog-backed stile" as a thing requiring a deal of deliberation, if not a wee bit jumping-powder. He will avoid trying conclusions whenever he can. But at your age and with your legs, on that mare of yours, Tom, you should go anywhere, if she will learn to jump cleverly.

Your feet should be "home" in the stirrups, and you will naturally throw them slightly backward as you hold on, toes down, because it both gives you the better grip and keeps your stirrup on your foot. In this particular, Tom, I bid you heed my precept, and not study my example, which is by no means of the best, as I am reduced to jumping with a straight leg, and to fastening my stirrup to my foot, lest I should not find it when I land.

XLVI

The Englishman's method and seat for cross-country riding is undeniably the best, and perhaps is hardly to be criticised. But a good seat or hands for hunting are not necessarily good for all other saddle work. That firmness in the saddle which will take a man over a five-foot wall may not be of the same quality as will give him absolutely light hands for School-riding. For as a rule, Englishmen prefer hunters who take pretty well hold of the bridle, and work well up to the bit. And for this one purpose, perhaps they are right. Such a hold will not, however, teach a man the uses of light hands in the remotest degree.

In a sharp run to hounds, a horse must have his head. For high pace or great exertions of mere speed, the horse must be free. A twitch on the curb may check him at a jump and give him a bad fall. As in racing, a horse has to learn that his duty is to put all his courage, speed, and jumping ability into his work, subject only to discreet guidance and management. But on the road, the exact reverse should be the rule. There is surely less enjoyment in your Penelope, who to-day can only walk, or else go a four-minute gait without constant friction, than there will be when she can vary her gaits and keep up any desired rate of speed, from a walk to a fifteen-mile trot or a sharp gallop, at the least intimation of your hands and without discomfort to herself. I know of nothing more annoying than to be forced by a riding companion of whichever sex into a sharper gait than either of you wish to go, because mounted on a fretting horse, who cannot be brought down to a comfortable rate of speed until all but tired out.

In the hunting-field you expect to go fast for a short time, and it is alone the speed and the occasional obstacle which lend the zest to the sport. But for the ride on the road, which to many of us is a lazy luxury, you need variety in speed as well as gaits for both comfort and pleasure. Patroclus here will walk, amble, rack, single-foot, trot, canter, gallop, and run, or go from any one into any other at will; and every one of these gaits is unmistakably distinct, crisp, and well performed. Nor have I ever found him any the less accomplished cross-country, within his limitation of condition and speed, for having had a complete education for the road. When I give him his head and loosen my curb, I find him just as free as if I had never restrained him from choosing his own course. Who can deny that the pleasure to be derived from such a horse for daily use does not exceed that to be got from one who can only trot on the road, or run and jump in the field?

Perhaps Nelly will never learn so much, for Patroclus is an exceptionally intelligent and well-suppled horse. But she can learn a good deal of it. Patroclus had no idea of any gait but a walk or trot when I bought him, nor did he start with any better equipment than Penelope; and in less than a year he knew all that he knows now, and much that he has forgotten. For in the many High School airs which he once could at call perform, he is altogether rusty from sheer lack of usage. But the "moral" may remain, though the fable may have long since passed from the memory.

XLVII

Some horses, who trot squarely, will go naturally from a walk into a little amble or pace, which is sometimes called a "shuffle." Often this is an agreeable and handsome gait, but not infrequently far from pleasant. Often, too, it will spoil the speed of the walk, as the horse will insensibly fall into it if pushed beyond his ease. A slower rate at a faster pace is always easier to a horse than the extreme of speed at the lesser gait. It is scarcely worth while in the East to try to teach a horse to amble or rack if he does not naturally do so, though it can often be done.

Apart from the agreeable and useful side of the true rack as a gait, it has not a few further advantages. In coming from a canter to a walk, a horse may be taught to slow up into a rack, and then drop to the walk, or to stop in the same manner. This enables him to come down without the least suspicion of that roughness which almost all horses show when stopping a canter, particularly if done quickly; unless, indeed, they be "poised" before being stopped, as a School-ridden horse always is from every gait. Moreover, when you rein a cantering horse down within the slowest limit of his speed at that pace, as to allow a team to pass, or for a similar purpose, if he knows how, he will fall into a rack, from which he can with much more comfort to himself and you resume the canter, than if he had fallen into a walk. A rack is not an interruption of the canter, as is a jog or walk, but a mere retardando, as it were. Still a rapid walk, a trot which varies from six to ten miles, and a well-collected canter suffice for any of our Eastern needs. These, and the gallop, moreover, are considered the only permissible paces by the School-riders of Europe.

In our Southern States rackers are bred for, and the instinct is confirmed by training. In many warm countries, ambling is bred for. I do not think that any horse with practically but a single gait, as is usually the case with the ambler or racker, comes up to the requisite standard of usefulness. Of the two, I should give my preference, in our latitude, to a mere trotter, if easy, who had a busy walk beside. But in addition to the trot and canter, any comfortable gait may often be a relief, and it is eminently desirable, if the horse can learn it without spoiling his proper paces. Such a gait adds vastly to a horse's value for the saddle.

I cannot agree with the School-riders that a rack may not be a good School gait. Patroclus' rack, when collected, is certainly as clean a performance as any of his other gaits. From it he will drop back to a walk, or fall into a canter or gallop with either lead, or into a square trot. And this more quickly than from another gait, for if, in a canter, the indication to trot be given him out of season, he may be obliged to complete one more stride before he can execute the order; whereas, from a rack, which is always a mid-stride for any gait, he can instantly fall into the one commanded. The indication and execution are often all but instantaneous from the rack. He is really more neatly collected on the rack proper than on any other gait, except the canter; and though the rack is unrecognized as a School pace, I feel certain that I could convince any master of the Haute Ecole that within proper limits it is an addition, not a loss, to the education of a horse. What School-riders mean when they exclude the rack from School-paces is that a racker has rarely any other gait; and in the usual loose-jointed rack of the South a horse is certainly not well enough poised for use in School performances.

XLVIII

To come back to our original text, then, it is quite impossible to say, as a whole, what seat is intrinsically the best, or what nation furnishes the best of riders. It appears to me that there is such a thing as a natural seat. Such a seat is clearly shown on the frieze of the Parthenon, and in a less artistic way may be seen among any horsemen riding without stirrups. Although Xenophon has been misunderstood in this particular, I feel convinced that his description calls for what I understand to be the natural seat. And the best military riders make the nearest approach to this position. By military seat I by no means intend to convey the idea of a straight leg, forked radish style. That is not the military seat proper. It is only in spite of such a seat, or in spite of the short stirrup of the East, and because they are always in the saddle, that the Mexican gaucho and the Arab of the desert both ride as magnificently as they do. The best military rider should, and does, carry the leg as it naturally falls when sitting on his breech, not his crotch, on the bare back of a horse. The steeple-chaser, or cross-country rider, for perfectly satisfactory reasons, has a much shorter stirrup. But on the road, he should, and generally does, come back more nearly to the natural length. The main advantage in the very long stirrup which obtains among so many peoples lies in the possibility of sitting close on a trot with greater ease, and of using the lasso or whip, or in having a free hand for their sundry sports or duties. And a high pommel and cantle are advantageous in helping the rider preserve his seat when he might be dragged – not thrown – from it in some of his peculiar experiences. But the perfectly straight leg always bears a suggestion of the parting advice of the groom to a Sunday rider just leaving the stable: "Look straight between his hears, sir, and keep your balance, and you can't come hoff." On the other hand, the advantages of an extremely short stirrup, such as prevails in the Orient, are very difficult to be understood at all.