Patroclus and Penelope: A Chat in the Saddle

The military riders of every civilized country, where enlistments are long enough, and where proper care is given to the instruction in equestrianism, are excellent. It would be curious indeed if men who devote their lives to the art should not be so. Some of our old army cavalry officers rode gloriously. Our volunteer cavalry, late in the war, rode strongly, though not always handsomely. During the past twenty years the severe work and long marches of our regular mounted troops have militated greatly against equestrianism as an art. Some of the most accomplished riders I have ever known have been in the United States Army. Philip Kearny, that preux chevalier, the "one-armed devil," was in every sense a superb rider. I have seen him with his cap in one hand, his empty sleeve blowing outward with his speed, and his sword dangling from his wrist, ride over a Virginia snake fence such as most of us would want to knock at least the top rail off.

"How he strode his brown steed! How we saw his blade brightenIn the one hand still left, – and the reins in his teeth!He laughed like a boy when the holidays heighten,But a soldier's glance shot from his visor beneath!"

And a man who could not follow him did not long remain upon his staff.

One of my lost opportunities occurred for such a reason during Pope's campaign, when General Kearny, who had dispatched right and left all his aides, beckoned to me at dusk one evening to ride out and draw the fire of some of the enemy's troops supposed to be on the edge of a wood, some half a mile or so distant. My own horse had been shot, and my equipments lost. I had captured an old farm-horse without a saddle, and had extemporized a rope bridle. The course lay athwart some open fields, with a number of fences still standing. My desire to do this work stood in inverse ratio to my steed's ability to second me. And no sooner had I ridden up and touched my cap for orders, than the general had gauged the poverty of my beast and rig, and speedily selected a better mounted messenger.

During the war, among the volunteer troops, we used in some of the divisions to organize steeple-chases during a long term of inactive operations, and good ones we frequently had; the old style steeple-chase over an unknown course being the fashion, and the steeple generally a prominent tree, at a distance of a couple of miles. Often the course was round a less distant tree and back again. Not a few good riders and horses were forthcoming to enter for such an event, and I have rarely seen better riding than there. An unknown course over Virginia fences, and through patches of Virginia second growth, especially after heavy rains, when mere gutters became rivers for a number of hours, and the ground was much like hasty-pudding, could be a test to try the best of horses and horsemen.

These are but isolated examples, instanced only as showing that every species of hard saddle work is very naturally apt to be cultivated among men whose duty keeps them in the saddle the better part of every day. And it is well known that English army officers are among the very best cross-country riders, and not a few have occupied the dignity of M. F. H., and done it credit. Surely such a rider, trained in the niceties of the manège, as well as experienced in riding to hounds, may fitly be placed at the head of the equestrian roll of honor.

After excluding professionals, then (and exceptional individuals), I am afraid I must brave criticism in calling the officers of civilized mounted troops distinctly the best class of riders. Next – perhaps you will say in the same category – comes that class in England which makes its one pleasure the prosecution of the most splendid of all sports, fox-hunting, and has reached perfection in the art. Excluding all riders who do not belong to the classes available for our imitation, there comes next, longo intervallo, the civilian rider everywhere.

It is impossible to draw any comparison between the above classes and even our own cowboys, whose peculiar duties and untamed mustangs prescribe their long leathers and horned pommel. Nor can the equatorial style be fairly contrasted with what meets the wants of the denizens of the civilized cities of the temperate zone.

In this country, the Southerner is the most constantly in the saddle, and a good rider in the sunny South is a thoroughly good rider. But I have often wondered at the number of poor ones it is possible to find in localities where everybody moves about in the saddle. Many men there, who ride all the time, seem to have acquired the trick of breaking every commandment in the decalogue of equitation. Using horses as a mere means of transportation seems sometimes to reduce the steed to a simple beast of burden, and equestrianism to the bald ability to sit in the saddle as you would in an ox-cart.

I think I have seen more graceful equestriennes in the South than anywhere else, – than even in England. But I must admit that all women who ride well possess such attractions for me as perhaps to warp my judgment in endeavoring to draw comparisons. Who but a Paris could have awarded the apple?

Although the Southern woman refuses to ride the trot, she has a proper substitute for it, and her seat is generally admirable. Though I greatly admire a square trot well ridden in a side-saddle, it is really the rise on this gait which makes so many crooked female riders among ourselves and our British cousins. This ought not to be so, but ladies are apt to resent too much severity in instruction, and without strict obedience to her master, a lady never learns to ride gracefully and stoutly. In the South, ladies ride habitually, and moreover a rack, single-foot, and canter are not only graceful, but straight-sitting paces for a woman.

It is not to-day risking much, however, to prophesy that within the lapse of little time our Eastern cities will boast as many clever Amazons as are to be found in the South. Who can contend that our Yankee women have not the intelligence, courage, vigor, and grace to rank with the riders of any clime?

XLIX

And now, Master Tom, let me again impress upon you that I have been giving you only the most rudimentary idea of how to train your mare. By no means expect that Nelly will ever execute the traverse, pirouette, Spanish trot, or piaffer, let alone trot or gallop backwards, as these airs should be performed, by any such superficial education. But you will certainly find her more agreeable, more tractable, safer, and easier, and you will have both enjoyed the schooling. And I feel assured that having gone so far you will not stop short of the next step, the study and practice of the art in its true refinements. I may, moreover, safely assume that after you have once owned a School-trained horse, you will never again be content with what might be appropriately termed the "perfect saddle horse" of commerce.

Our roads part here, – yours towards the studious shades of Harvard, mine towards the rolling uplands of Chestnut Hill. Fare you well!