MECHANICAL AID OF THE RIDER.
The rider cannot raise the falling horse.--Harm is done by the
attempt.--The bearing rein.--Mechanical assistance of the jockey to
his horse.--Standing on the stirrups.--Difference between the gallop
and the leap.--Steeple-chases and hurdle-races unfair on the
horse.--The rider should not attempt to lift his horse at a fence.
[Sidenote: The rider cannot raise the falling horse.]
There is no more common error than to believe that the rider can hold
his horse up when he is falling. How often do we hear a man assert that
his horse would have been down with him forty times if he had not held
him up; that he has taken his horse up between his hands and legs and
lifted him over a fence; or that he has recovered his horse on the other
side!
These are vulgar errors, and mechanical impossibilities. Could ten men,
with hand-spikes, lift the weight of a horse? Probably. Attach the
weight to the thin rein of a lady's bridle. Could a lady lift it with
the left hand? I think not; though it is commonly supposed that she
could. A pull from a curb will indeed give the horse so much pain in the
mouth that he will throw his head up, and this so flatters the hand that
its prowess has saved him, that the rider exclaims "It may be
impossible, but it happens every day. Shall I not believe my own
senses?" The answer is, No, not if it can be explained how the senses
are deceived. Otherwise, we should still believe, as, till some few
centuries ago, the world did believe, that the diurnal motion was in the
sun, and not in the earth. Otherwise we must subscribe to the philosophy
of the Turk, who
"Saw with his own eyes the moon was round,
Was also certain that the earth was square,
Because he'd journey'd fifty miles and found
No sign of its being circular anywhere."
[Sidenote: Harm is done by the attempt.]
But these errors are not harmless errors. They induce an ambitious
interference with the horse at the moment in which he should be left
unconfined to the use of his own energies. If by pulling, and giving
him pain in the mouth, you force him to throw up his head and neck, you
prevent his seeing how to foot out any unsafe ground, or where to take
off at a fence, and in the case of stumbling you prevent an action
practically dictated by nature and theoretically justified by
philosophy. When an unmounted horse stumbles, nature teaches him to drop
his head and neck; philosophy teaches us the reason of it. During the
instant that his head and neck are dropping the shoulders are relieved
from their weight, and that is the instant in which the horse makes his
effort to recover himself. If by giving him pain in his mouth, you force
him to raise his head and neck instead of sinking them, his shoulders
will still remain encumbered with the weight of them; more than this, as
action and reaction are equal and in contrary directions, the muscular
power employed to raise the head and neck will act to sink the shoulders
and knees. The mechanical impossibility of the rider assisting his horse
when falling may be demonstrated thus: no motion can be given to a body
without a foreign force or a foreign fulcrum. Your strength is not a
foreign force, since it is employed entirely on the horse. Nor can it be
employed on the foreign fulcrum, the ground, through the medium of your
reins; as much as you pull up, so much you pull down. If a man in a boat
uses an oar, he can accelerate or impede the motion of the boat, because
his strength is employed through the medium of the oar on the water,
which is a foreign fulcrum. But if he takes hold of the chain at the
head of the boat, his whole strength will not accelerate or impede the
motion of the boat, because there is neither foreign force nor foreign
fulcrum. His whole strength is employed within the boat, and as much as
he pulls backward with his hands, he pushes forward with his feet. The
baker can lift his basket, but not when he is himself in it.
[Sidenote: Bearing-rein.]
All the arguments which I have heard adduced against the doctrine here
laid down would also go to prove that a horse cannot fall which has a
bearing-rein and a crupper, that is, whose head is tied to his tail. Sir
Francis Head's observations on bearing-reins, in the "Bubbles of the
Brunnen," are quite philosophical. They should only be used for purposes
of parade, or to acquire greater power over a difficult _team_, or
_loosely_ to keep cart-horses "out of mischief." Sir Francis's
observations are also true of the harness used by the peasantry of
Nassau which he describes, but this arises from the poverty, not the
philosophy of the peasants; those among them, who have money enough to
buy smart harness have the most elaborate bearing-reins that I have ever
seen. One, a chain, from the lower part of the collar, which binds the
horse's chin to his breast, and another over the upper part of the
collar, along and above the back to the tail, independent of the
terret-pad and crupper. This is tying the horse's head to his tail with
a vengeance.[54-*] To be consistent, the opponents of the theory which
I have laid down should act on this principle--though I have never known
them go quite so far. Sed quis custodes custodiet ipsos? What is to
prevent the tail from falling forward with the body? They indeed argue,
"Surely if you throw back the weight of the shoulders over the croupe of
the horse, you relieve his fore-hand, and diminish the chance of his
falling." This is rather to propose a new method of preventing a horse
from falling, than to prove the advantage of pulling at the mouth while
he is falling; for if it is of any advantage to throw your weight back,
then the less you pull at the mouth the better, for the more you pull,
the less you are at liberty to throw the weight back. But, in truth, it
is of no advantage to throw the weight back when the stumble is made. If
a position is previously taken up on the croupe of the horse, the
pressure will be less on the fore-hand than if you were placed in a
forward position. But during the time that the position is in the act of
being shifted, that is, during the time that the horse is falling, the
act of throwing your own weight back produces an exactly equivalent
pressure forward, in all respects the counterpart of your own motion
backward, in intensity and duration. It is useless to dwell on this
subject, or to adduce the familiar illustrations which it admits of. It
is a simple proposition of mechanical equilibrium, and any one who is
conversant with such subjects _must_ assent to it.
[Sidenote: Mechanical assistance of jockey.]
The question whether a jockey can mechanically assist his horse, does
not rest on the same footing. I believe he can, thus. If a man sits
astride of a chair, with his feet off the ground, and clasps the chair
with his legs, by the muscular exertion of his lower limbs he can jump
the chair along. The muscular force is there employed on the foreign
fulcrum, the ground, through the medium of the legs of the chair. The
muscular action strikes the chair downward and backward, and if the
chair was on ice it would recede, so also would the feet of a horse in
attempting to strike forward. If the chair was on soft ground, it would
sink, so also would a horse, in proportion to the force of the muscular
stroke. But if the resistance of the ground is complete, the reaction,
which is precisely equal and in a contrary direction to the action, will
throw the body of the man upward and forward, and by clasping with his
legs he will draw the chair also with him. But he can only accomplish in
this way a very little distance with a very great exertion. If the
jockey made this muscular exertion every time that his horse struck with
his hind feet, his strength would be employed on the foreign fulcrum,
the ground, through the medium of his horse's bony frame. Thus the
jockey would contribute to the horizontal impulse of his own weight, and
exactly in proportion to the muscular power exerted by the jockey, the
muscular system of the horse would be relieved. At the same time no
additional task is thrown on the bony frame of the horse, since, if the
jockey had not used his muscular power on it in impelling his own
weight, the muscular system of the horse must have been so employed. It
is true, that not much is done after all with a prodigious exertion, but
if that little gains six inches in a hardly contested race it may make
the difference of its being lost or won. Thus an easy race is no
exertion to a jockey, but after a hardly contested one, he returns with
his lips parched, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth, and
every muscle quivering.
The working a horse up with both hands on his mouth is easier to the
jockey than using the whip, and more effective in rousing the horse to
his greatest exertion.
[Sidenote: Standing on the stirrups.]
What is called "standing on the stirrups" consists chiefly in bringing
the weight forward on to both thighs. In this position the rider has a
greater power of adjusting the balance of his weight to the movements of
his horse. In racing it is practically proved to be _essential_. And it
is of infinite service to the horse in the long and severe galloping of
hunting.
It is surprising that the English are the only people who rise in the
stirrup at a trot; it is not surprising that other nations are beginning
to follow their example.
[Sidenote: Difference between the gallop and the leap.]
In galloping, the horse's legs catch the eye most when they are from
under him, and he is drawn with all four from under him. In truth, his
hind legs are under him when his fore legs are from under him, and his
fore legs are under him when his hind legs are from under him; his hind
feet pass over where his fore feet rested, so that from footprint to
footprint he clears very little _space_. In fact, owing to what is
called _leading_ with one leg, the line between his two fore feet and
the line between his two hind feet are by no means at right angles to
the line of his direction; so that the greatest distance from footprint
to footprint is not nearly half his stroke. The leap differs from the
gallop not only in the greater _space of ground_ cleared by the feet,
but in the greater _space of time_ for which the feet quit the ground;
this last difference is of more importance than might be imagined.
[Sidenote: Steeple-chases unfair on the horse.]
Antæus was not peculiar in his dependence for strength on contact with
his mother earth. In leaping, neither man nor horse can draw breath
while in the air, that is, from the time the feet leave the ground till
they again touch it. But _quick_ breathing (the creber anhelitus) is
not only a consequence of distress for wind, but it is a vital necessity
when distressed for wind. And the impossibility to draw breath when off
the ground is the reason of the death of horses in steeple-chasing and
hurdle-racing; they die of suffocation. The reason is a sufficient one
for the discontinuance of such racing and chasing.
A mounted horse will overtake a dismounted horse, his superior in speed.
It is the common error to suppose that this results from the mechanical
assistance of the rider. The real reason is, that the dismounted horse
goes off, like an inexperienced jockey, at his utmost speed. I do not
believe that a horse can do this for more than a hundred yards without
being distressed for wind (and I speak from experience with Mr. Drummond
Hay's barbs at Tangier, which were trained to the feat). The rider
starts at a pace which he knows his horse can keep, and the dismounted
horse, though he gains on him at first, _comes back to him_ as the
jockeys say: for a horse which has been distressed for wind in the first
hundred yards, will not arrive at the end of a mile nearly so soon as
if he had gone the whole at the best pace he could stay at. Here the
assistance from the rider is mental not mechanical.
When mounted it never happens to any horse but an arab or a barb to go
his best _muscular_ pace. What we call best pace is the best pace a
horse can stay at for _wind_. If a common hack were started fresh for
the last hundred yards against the best horses in England when finishing
their race, he would have it hollow.
[Sidenote: The rider should not lift his horse at a fence.]
Woe to the sportsman who ambitiously attempts to lift his horse
mechanically over a fence on the principle discussed above; he is much
more likely to throw him into it. He had better content himself with
sitting quietly on his horse, holding him only just enough to keep his
head straight and to regulate his pace, and trust the rest to his
horse's honour. The horse should feel sufficiently commanded to know
that he _must_ go, and sufficiently at liberty to know that he _may_ use
all his capabilities. The body should not previously be thrown back, but
as the horse springs, the lower part of the rider being firmly fixed in
the saddle, and the upper part perfectly pliable, the body will fall
back of itself; and with strong jumping horses, or at down leaps, the
shoulders of fine riders will constantly meet their horse's croupes.
A bad horseman throws his horse down, which a good one does not. That
is, because the bad horseman hurries his horse over hard or rough
ground, or down hill, or over loose stones--allows him to choose his own
ground--lets him flounder into difficulties, and when there, hauls him
so that he cannot see, or exert himself to get out of them, and
expecting chastisement, the horse springs and struggles to avoid it
before he has recovered his feet, and goes down with a tremendous
impetus. If he has to cross a rut to the right he probably forces his
horse across it when the right foot is on the ground. In this case,
unless the horse collects himself and jumps--if he attempts to step
across it, the probability is that in crossing his legs he knocks one
against the other and falls. The reverse of all this should be the case.
If you have not sufficient tact to feel which of your horse's feet is
on the ground, you must allow him to choose his own time for crossing,
which will be when the left foot is on the ground.
You should habitually choose your horse's ground for him, for,
notwithstanding his often vaunted sagacity and safety, the wisest among
horses will, to avoid a moving leaf, put his foot over a precipice. This
will become as easy to you as choosing your own path in walking. If your
horse has made a false step, or is in difficulties, you cannot leave him
too much at liberty, or be too quiet with him. The only notice to be
taken is to re-assure him by caressing him, if you see that he expects
chastisement from previous brutal treatment.
I will add that you should habitually prevent your horse out-walking or
lagging behind his companions; he is either very unsociable or a bad
horseman, who does not keep abreast of his companions. Besides, horses,
being gregarious, are apt to follow one another. This should not be.
Your horse should be in perpetual obedience to the indications which
your hands and legs give him, and to nothing else. These indications
should not only decide the pace which he is to take, but deal out to him
the rate at which each pace is to be executed, and also determine his
carriage during the performance of it; that is, the degree in which he
is to collect himself, or the degree of liberty which is to be allowed
him.
FOOTNOTE:
[54-*] Of all stupid appliances of man to his horse, the most dense is
the Austrian and south German mode of driving the einspanner or single
horse or a leader. The rein goes single from the driver's hand, and
divides into two at the horse's neck. The driver, therefore, has no
power of making a distinct indication on either rein: and to turn, he
whips and jerks till the horse guesses his meaning.