contrary, the bit ought to play in her mouth loosely, and with the
trained horse the barest motion of the leg towards the body suffices.
The spur need very rarely touch her flank. The delicacy of perception
of the schooled horse is often amazing. But the co-efficient of a
balanced horse is a rider with firm seat and light hands. Either is
powerless without the other. Moreover, a generous and intelligent
beast, reasonably treated, learns the duty prescribed to him without
the least friction. To respond to a kindly rider's wants seems to be a
pride and a pleasure to him instead of a task.
Among the most agreeable incidents of horse-training is the evident
delight which the horse takes in learning, the appreciation with which
he receives your praise, and the confiding willingness with which he
performs airs requiring the greatest exertion, and often a painful
application of the spur, without any idea of resistance or resentment,
even when his strength, endurance, intelligence, and good temper are
taxed to the severest degree. I have sometimes wondered at a patience,
which I myself could never have exhibited, in a creature which could
so readily refuse the demands made upon him, as well as at the
manifest pleasure he will take in the simple reward of a gentle word.
There is much difference in the nomenclature of horse-training. Unless
one needs to be specific, as in describing the methods of the Haute
Ecole, "in hand" and "collected" are frequently used interchangeably.
But they should really be distinct in meaning, "in hand" being the
response to the bit, "collected," the response to bit and legs, and
"in poise," a very close position of equilibrium, preceding the most
difficult movements of the School.
Now, in order to get Penelope accustomed to respond to the pressure of
the legs, you must practice bringing your legs towards her flanks
while her head is well poised, at frequent intervals. Whenever she
responds by bringing her hind legs under her--and you will notice when
she does so by her greater elasticity and more active movement--speak
a good word to her, and keep her gathered in this way only so long as
she can comfortably remain so, gradually prolonging the terms during
which you hold her thus "collected." You will find that her step will
soon become lighter and the speed of her response to your own
movements a great contrast to the sluggishness of the horse moving his
natural gait in the saddle. Her carriage will begin to show the same
equilibrium in which the practiced fencer stands "in guard," or more
properly, it will show that splendid action of the horse at liberty
which he never exhibits in the restraint of the saddle, except when
trained.
Whoever has watched a half-dozen fine horses just turned loose from
the stall into a pretty paddock, will have noticed that, in their
delighted bounds and curvetings, each one will perform his part with a
wonderful grace, ease, and elegance of action. You may see the
passage, piaffer, and Spanish trot, and even the passage backwards,
done by the untrained horse of his own playful volition, urged thereto
solely by the exuberance of his spirits. Under saddle he will not do
this, unless taught by the methods of the School. But so taught, he
will perform all these and more, with readiness and evident
satisfaction to himself.
[Illustration: PLATE XI.
DOING IT HANDILY.]
I must again impress upon you, Tom, that for perfect success, even in
little things, you will need vastly more careful training than this;
and that what I am discussing with you is but a very partial
substitute for the higher education. I am indeed sorry to feel tied
down to such simple instruction. But I want to tell you just enough to
lead you to experiment for yourself, and to catch sufficient of the
fascination of the art to study it thoroughly. I am, however, anxious
that you should by no means understand me to say that you can, by any
such simple means as I shall have detailed to you, perfect the
education of your mare. You can improve her present condition vastly,
and make her light and handy compared to what she naturally is. But
the best results involve far other work.
XXXVII.
You tell me that Nelly can only trot and walk, and you want to teach
her the canter and hand-gallop. Many horses will naturally fall into a
canter if you shake the reins; but some who come of trotting stock
will not do so without considerable effort; and still such a horse is
often the best one to buy. Now the easiest way to get Nelly into a
canter, if she persists in trotting, is to push her beyond her speed,
for which purpose you should select a soft piece of ground. So soon as
she has broken into a gallop, unless she has been trained to settle
back into a trot, you can readily slow up without changing her gait.
If it has been attempted to train her as a trotter, you will have
harder work to do this. But there is a little vibrating movement of
the hands, sometimes called "lifting," which tends to keep a horse
cantering, just as a steady pull keeps him trotting. This movement is
in the little what the galloping action of a horse is in the great.
The hands move very slightly forward and upward, and pass back again
on an under line.
Apparently, Nelly has been broken in the usual way, for she trots
naturally on a steady rein or on the snaffle. Now, you will find that
a moving rein or the curb is apt to break her trot, and make her do
something else,--either prance, or trot with high unsettled steps, or
canter. It is for your own hands, when she gets to the canter, to hold
her there. This may take you some time, but you can certainly do it by
repeated trials. Having accomplished it, you may, between curb bit and
spurs, both gently used, mind you, gradually teach her to carry her
head properly at this pace, and get her haunches well under her; and
it will give you pleasure to notice how much more natural it is for
her to come "in hand" than on the trot. As the canter is the natural
gait of the horse, you will find Nelly soon keep to it if she
understands that you so desire. But remember that you should canter or
gallop habitually only on soft ground. Hard roads soon injure the fore
feet and fetlock joints if a horse is constantly cantered or galloped
upon them, because the strides are longer and the weight comes down
harder, and always more upon the leading fore foot than upon the
other. Moreover, the canter with the hind legs well gathered is apt to
be somewhat of a strain to the houghs of the horse unless it is
properly--rhythmically--performed, and unless the animal is gradually
broken in by proper flexions.
But to canter is one thing. You have yet to teach Penelope to canter
on either foot at will, leading off with left or right and changing
foot in motion. This is quite another matter, and you will find that
it will take some time and a vast deal of patience in both of you.
Let us suppose that you have brought Nell down to a fairly slow
canter. Until you can, without effort to her or you, rein her down to
quite a slow one, she does not know the rudiments of the gait. To
canter properly, she must, without resistance, pull, or fret, come
down to a canter quite as slow as a fast walk, even slower, and not
show the least attempt to fall into a jog; all this while so poised
that she can bound into a gallop at the next stride. Any plug can run.
Few of the saddle horses you meet on the road seem to canter slowly,
and yet it is one of the most essential of gaits and a great relief
from a constant trot, especially for a lady.
It may perhaps look more sportsmanlike--I don't like to use the word
"horsey"--for a lady always to trot; but no lady, apart from this,
begins to look as well upon the trot as when sitting the properly
timed park canter of a fresh and handsome horse. Moreover, it requires
vastly less art to ride the trot usually seen with us than to bring a
high-couraged horse down to a slow parade canter and keep him there,
not to dilate upon the gloriously invigorating and luxurious feeling
of this gait when executed in its perfection.
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.
Properly speaking, you ought about this time to give Nelly a little
side suppling of the neck, so as to make the parts respond readily to
your will. This is done first on foot, by gently turning the
mouthpiece of the curb bit in a horizontal plane, so as to force her
head to either side and make her arch her neck, without allowing her
to shift feet. Later, it is done by drawing one curb rein over her
neck so as to bring her head sidewise down towards the shoulder, while
steadying her with a less marked pressure on the other rein. To do
this properly, the Baucher diagrams, or a longer description, would be
useful. When the neck is in this exercise perfectly flexed, she will
be looking to the rear. With some little practice Nelly will thus
readily, at call, bring her head way round to the saddle-flap, with
neck arched, and mouthing her bit. Later still, you can practice this
flexion mounted, by holding both reins, and pulling a trifle more
strongly on one curb than on the other, and steadying her by voice and
leg to prevent her from moving. This exercise will make it physically
easier for Nelly by and by to respond to your demands, for her neck
will be flexible enough for her to hold her head in any desired
position without undue effort. And the same thing can be done in
motion, if this is not too rapid.
As already said, the circular movement described (termed a pirouette
about the hind, and a reversed pirouette about the fore feet) should
be made on one absolutely unmoved fore or hind foot as pivot. For,
plainly, both feet cannot act as one pivot without twisting the legs.
This pirouette is really a "low pirouette," the pirouette proper being
a movement by the horse poised on his hind legs alone, describing the
circle with fore legs in the air, which is a vastly finer performance.
It will suffice for you, though, Tom, if Nelly will make the
pirouette, simple or reversed, without substantially shifting the
position of the two pivot feet. But you must remember that if you
start with a half-and-half education, it is more difficult to perfect
the training than if you start in a more systematic manner; and I do
not pretend that these are the proper, but only easy methods.
It is by the union of the side steps of forehand and croup, the former
always a trifle in advance, that a horse is taught to "traverse," that
is, to move sideways at a walk, trot, or gallop. But the traverse is a
School gait rarely needed on the road, and a horse may be trained to
entire usefulness without being able to traverse, _as a gait_, if
he can willingly make a few quick side steps in either direction.
Moreover, to properly traverse, a horse should be taught the passage,
which is a gait in which the feet are raised much higher, by the
inducement of the spur and the indication of the rein, than the horse
would naturally lift them. The passage is put to use in very many of
the airs of the _manege_.
XXXIX.
To revert now to the canter, for which the pirouettes are
preparations. There are two or three ways of teaching a horse to lead
with either foot, but the best way is to begin with the flexions which
I have just described to you, and the more perfect these are, the
easier and quicker the progress, and the more satisfactory the result.
If you have not patience to wade through all these, you may try the
following plan, which is founded on the natural instincts and balance
of the horse, but for the execution of which, with your load on his
back, he has not been prepared.
A horse will lead with the off foot most readily if he is going round
a circle to the right; with the near foot, if circling to the left. In
other words, the foot which will quickest sustain his weight against
the centrifugal motion is the one which is planted first, that is, the
foot not leading. The way a horse is taught in a riding-school to lead
with either foot is by associating the proper indication to do so with
the lead he naturally takes as he canters around the right or left of
the ring, or changes direction in what are called the voltes in
teaching pupils. But I have seen many horses who would do this very
readily inside school walls, who were very stupid or refractory on a
straight bit of road. I think this is universally true, in fact, and
that is why I recommend road teaching whenever practicable.
It cannot be alleged that every horse will always use the proper foot
in the lead. A horse unused to cantering with a rider's weight upon
his back may do all kinds of awkward things which at liberty, or when
trained, he will not attempt to do. But the above way of leading is
the natural thing, and that which a horse generally does when at
liberty; and it is not hard to induce him to do what comes naturally
to him, nor by practice to strengthen the habit.
[Illustration: PLATE XII.
A TWENTY-FOOT LEAP.]
The action of the legs of the leading side is higher in the canter and
the gallop than that of the other pair. A horse is said to be "false"
in his canter or gallop if he turns with a wrong lead, that is, if he
turns to the right until he alters his lead to the right shoulder,
unless he is already so leading, or _vice versa_. This is true of
sharp turns, which may indeed cause a dangerous fall if "false," but a
horse can safely make turns with a long radius and good footing
without altering his lead, and this is often convenient to be done.
But if the ground is slippery, it is a risk to turn a sharp corner
with a wrong lead. I have often seen men punish a horse for slipping
at such a turn, when it was solely owing to the false lead that he did
so; and the false lead was either the lack of education in the horse
or the rider, or both. Sometimes a horse will be leading with one
shoulder, and following with the alternate hind leg. He is then said
to be "disunited," or "disconnected." The leg or spur, applied on
either side to bring him to the proper lead, will soon correct this
error, as it is equally disagreeable to horse and rider, and it is a
relief to both to change it.
Now, acting on this theory of the horse having a natural lead, suppose
you canter Nelly about in a circle small enough to induce her to use
the proper leg in the lead. A circle fifty feet in diameter will do.
At the same time apply a constant but slight pressure of your leg on
the side opposite her leading shoulder. She will by and by associate
this pressure with what you want her to do. Stick to one direction
long enough, say three or four days, to impress the idea on her mind,
and she will be rather apt to keep it in memory. Then try the other
direction with opposite pressure, and you will gradually get the
opposite result.
Again, a horse canters best with off shoulder leading, if moving along
the side of a hill which slopes up to his right, and _vice versa_.
Thus, if you keep on the left side of most roads, where the grade
slopes towards the gutter, you will find that Nelly will lead best
with her right shoulder. This is for the same reason. She wishes to
plant quickest that foot which will keep her from slipping down hill.
If she is on the right of the road she will lead best with the left
shoulder. She will, perhaps, not do this as readily as on the circle,
but she will be apt to do it. If you should watch a horse in the
circus ring, you would notice that this is apparently not true. But
the slanting path of the circus ring is really not on a slant at all,
when we calculate the centrifugal force of the motion around so small
a circle. It is as if a horse were moving on a horizontal plane, for
he is really perpendicular to the slanting path; and its tipped
position is governed by the same mathematical rule as the road-bed of
a railroad curve.
You may utilize this slanting instinct also in the same fashion as the
circle first mentioned for getting the elementary idea into Nelly's
head that pressure on one side means leading with the opposite
shoulder. Moreover, the side of the road, which is the slope most
handy, has the additional advantage of being generally the softest
cantering ground.
There is an upward play of the rein, which can be explained only to
the student who has advanced some distance in the art, which tends to
lighten, or invigorate one or the other side of a horse, and thus
induce him, coupled with other means, to make the long strides, that
is, lead, with the lightened or active shoulder. But you, Tom, will
not be able to use this until you have devoted more time to study as
well as practice.
After you have tried the circle to your satisfaction, try cantering in
a figure eight of sufficient size. Nelly will thereby learn
instinctively to change step as she comes to the loops. You can
probably find a field or lawn somewhere on which you can practice.
Out-of-door instruction is always preferable to riding-school work, if
equally good, both for man and beast. And such instruction as these
hints are intended to enable you to give, will teach you more than the
average riding-school ever does. I by no means refer to those schools
which teach equitation as a true art, instead of merely drilling you
in the bald elements of riding. Nor is there any better place to give
Nelly proper instruction than a riding-school, unless it be the lawn
or field. What you teach Nelly out-of-doors you will find her much
more willing and able to put into use on the road than if she had gone
through the same drill in a school.
XL.