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[Illustration: Frontispiece Page 123.]
RIDING RECOLLECTIONS.
BY
G. J. WHYTE-MELVILLE.
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY EDGAR GIBERNE._
FIFTH EDITION.
LONDON:
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
1878.
[_All Rights Reserved._]
LONDON:
R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS,
BREAD STREET HILL.
Dedicated,
ON BEHALF OF "THE BRIDLED AND SADDLED,"
TO THE
"BOOTED AND SPURRED."
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
KINDNESS 3
CHAPTER II.
COERCION 13
CHAPTER III.
THE USE OF THE BRIDLE 34
CHAPTER IV.
THE ABUSE OF THE SPUR 59
CHAPTER V.
HAND 72
CHAPTER VI.
SEAT 94
CHAPTER VII.
VALOUR 109
CHAPTER VIII.
DISCRETION 126
CHAPTER IX.
IRISH HUNTERS 144
CHAPTER X.
THOROUGH-BRED HORSES 163
CHAPTER XI.
RIDING TO FOX-HOUNDS 180
CHAPTER XII.
RIDING _at_ STAG-HOUNDS 203
CHAPTER XIII.
THE PROVINCES 220
CHAPTER XIV.
THE SHIRES 235
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
The Dorsetshire farmer's plan of teaching horses to jump timber 8
"If he should drop his hind legs, _shoot_ yourself off over his
shoulders in an instant, with a fast hold of the bridle, at which
tug hard, even though you may not have regained your legs" 32
"Lastly, when it gets upon Bachelor, or Benedict, or Othello, or
any other high-flyer with a suggestive name, it sails away close,
often too close, to the hounds leaving brothers, husbands, even
admirers, hopelessly in the rear" (_Frontispiece_) 123
"Perhaps we find an easy place under a tree, with an overhanging
branch, and sidle daintily up to it, bending the body and
lowering the head as we creep through, to the admiration of an
indiscreet friend on a rash horse who spoils a good hat and
utters an evil execration, while trying to follow our example" 138
"When we canter anxiously up to a sign-post where four roads meet,
with a fresh and eager horse indeed, but not the wildest notion
towards which point of the compass we should direct his energies,
we can but stop to listen, take counsel of a countryman, &c." 193
At bay 208
"'Come up horse!' and having admonished that faithful servant with
a dig in the ribs from his horn, blows half-a-dozen shrill blasts
in quick succession, sticks the instrument, I shudder to confess
it, in his boot, and proceeds to hustle his old white nag at the
best pace he can command in the wake of his favourites" 225
"The King of the Golden Mines" 242
RIDING RECOLLECTIONS.
RIDING RECOLLECTIONS.
As in the choice of a horse and a wife a man must please himself,
ignoring the opinion and advice of friends, so in the governing of each
it is unwise to follow out any fixed system of discipline. Much depends
on temper, education, mutual understanding and surrounding
circumstances. Courage must not be heated to recklessness, caution
should be implied rather than exhibited, and confidence is simply a
question of time and place. It is as difficult to explain by precept or
demonstrate by example how force, balance, and persuasion ought to be
combined in horsemanship, as to teach the art of floating in the water
or swimming on the back. Practice in either case alone makes perfect,
and he is the most apt pupil who brings to his lesson a good opinion of
his own powers and implicit reliance on that which carries him. Trust
the element or the animal and you ride aloft superior to danger; but
with misgiving comes confusion, effort, breathlessness, possibly
collapse and defeat. Morally and physically, there is no creature so
nervous as a man out of his depth.
In offering the following pages to the public, the writer begs
emphatically to disclaim any intention of laying down the law on such a
subject as horsemanship. Every man who wears spurs believes himself more
or less an adept in the art of riding; and it would be the height of
presumption for one who has studied that art as a pleasure and not a
profession to dictate for the ignorant, or enter the lists of argument
with the wise. All he can lay claim to is a certain amount of
experience, the result of many happy hours spent with the noble animal
under him, of some uncomfortable minutes when mutual indiscretion has
caused that position to be reversed.
If the few hints he can offer should prove serviceable to the beginner
he will feel amply rewarded, and will only ask to be kindly remembered
hereafter in the hour of triumph when the tyro of a riding-school has
become the pride of a hunting-field,--judicious, cool, daring, and
skilful--light of hand, firm of seat, thoroughly at home in the saddle,
a very Centaur
"Encorpsed and demi-natured
With the brave beast."
CHAPTER I.
KINDNESS.
In our dealings with the brute creation, it cannot be too much insisted
on that mutual confidence is only to be established by mutual good-will.
The perceptions of the beast must be raised to their highest standard,
and there is no such enemy to intelligence as fear. Reward should be as
the daily food it eats, punishment as the medicine administered on rare
occasions, unwillingly, and but when absolute necessity demands. The
horse is of all domestic animals most susceptible to anything like
discomfort or ill-usage. Its nervous system, sensitive and highly
strung, is capable of daring effort under excitement, but collapses
utterly in any new and strange situation, as if paralysed by
apprehensions of the unknown. Can anything be more helpless than the
young horse you take out hunting the first time he finds himself in a
bog? Compare his frantic struggles and sudden prostration with the
discreet conduct of an Exmoor pony in the same predicament. The one
terrified by unaccustomed danger, and relying instinctively on the speed
that seems his natural refuge, plunges wildly forward, sinks to his
girths, his shoulders, finally unseats his rider, and settles down,
without further exertion, in the stupid apathy of despair.
The other, born and bred in the wild west country, picking its scanty
keep from a foal off the treacherous surface of a Devonshire moor,
either refuses altogether to trust the quagmire, or shortens its stride,
collects its energies, chooses the soundest tufts that afford foothold,
and failing these, flaps its way out on its side, to scramble into
safety with scarce a quiver or a snort. It has been there before! Herein
lies the whole secret. Some day your young one will be as calm, as wise,
as tractable. Alas! that when his discretion has reached its prime his
legs begin to fail!
Therefore cultivate his intellect--I use the word advisedly--even
before you enter on the development of his physical powers. Nature and
good keep will provide for these, but to make him man's willing friend
and partner you must give him the advantage of man's company and man's
instruction. From the day you slip a halter over his ears he should be
encouraged to look to you, like a child, for all his little wants and
simple pleasures. He should come cantering up from the farthest corner
of the paddock when he hears your voice, should ask to have his nose
rubbed, his head stroked, his neck patted, with those honest, pleading
looks which make the confidence of a dumb creature so touching; and
before a roller has been put on his back, or a snaffle in his mouth he
should be convinced that everything you do to him is right, and that it
is impossible for _you_, his best friend, to cause him the least
uneasiness or harm.
I once owned a mare that would push her nose into my pockets in search
of bread and sugar, would lick my face and hands like a dog, or suffer
me to cling to any part of her limbs and body while she stood perfectly
motionless. On one occasion, when I hung in the stirrup after a fall,
she never stirred on rising, till by a succession of laborious and
ludicrous efforts I could swing myself back into the saddle, with my
foot still fast, though hounds were running hard and she loved hunting
dearly in her heart. As a friend remarked at the time, "The little mare
seems very fond of you, or there might have been a bother!"
Now this affection was but the result of petting, sugar, kind and
encouraging words, particularly at her fences, and a rigid abstinence
from abuse of the bridle and the spur. I shall presently have something
to say about both these instruments, but I may remark in the mean time
that many more horses than people suppose will cross a country safely
with a loose rein. The late Colonel William Greenwood, one of the finest
riders in the world, might be seen out hunting with a single
curb-bridle, such as is called "a hard-and-sharp" and commonly used only
in the streets of London or the Park. The present Lord Spencer, of whom
it is enough to say that he hunts one pack of his own hounds in
Northamptonshire, and is always _in the same field with them_, never
seems to have a horse pull, or until it is tired, even lean on his hand.
I have watched both these gentlemen intently to learn their secret, but
I regret to say without avail.
This, however, is not the present question. Long before a bridle is
fitted on the colt's head he should have so thoroughly learned the habit
of obedience, that it has become a second instinct, and to do what is
required of him seems as natural as to eat when he is hungry or lie down
when he wants to sleep.
This result is to be attained in a longer or shorter time, according to
different tempers, but the first and most important step is surely
gained when we have succeeded in winning that affection which nurses and
children call "cupboard love." Like many amiable characters on two legs,
the quadruped is shy of acquaintances but genial with friends. Make him
understand that you are his best and wisest, that all you do conduces to
his comfort and happiness, be careful at first not to deceive or
disappoint him, and you will find his reasoning powers quite strong
enough to grasp the relations of cause and effect.
In a month or six weeks he will come to your call, and follow you about
like a dog. Soon he will let you lift his feet, handle him all over,
pull his tail, and lean your weight on any part of his body, without
alarm or resentment. When thoroughly familiar with your face, your
voice, and the motions of your limbs, you may back him with perfect
safety, and he will move as soberly under you in any place to which he
is accustomed as the oldest horse in your stable.
Do not forget, however, that education should be gradual as moon-rise,
perceptible, not in progress, but result. I recollect one morning riding
to covert with a Dorsetshire farmer whose horses, bred at home, were
celebrated as timber-jumpers even in that most timber-jumping of
countries. I asked him how they arrived at this proficiency without
breaking somebody's neck, and he imparted his plan.
The colt, it seemed, ran loose from a yearling in the owner's
straw-yard, but fed in a lofty out-house, across the door of which was
placed a single tough ashen bar that would not break under a bullock.
This was laid on the ground till the young one had grown thoroughly
accustomed to it, and then raised very gradually to such a height as was
less trouble to jump than clamber over. At three feet the two-year old
thought no more of the obstacle than a girl does of her skipping-rope.
After that, it was heightened an inch every week, and it needs no ready
reckoner to tell us at the end of six months how formidable a leap the
animal voluntarily negotiated three times a day. "It's never put no
higher," continued my informant; "I'm an old man now, and that's good
enough for me."
I should think it was! A horse that can leap five feet of timber in cold
blood is not likely to be pounded, while still unblown, in any part of
England I have yet seen.
[Illustration: Page 8.]
Now the Dorsetshire farmer's system was sound, and based on common
sense. As you bend the twig so grows the tree, therefore prepare your
pupil from the first for the purpose you intend him to serve hereafter.
An Arab foal, as we know, brought up in the Bedouin's tent, like another
child, among the Bedouin's children, is the most docile of its kind, and
I cannot but think that if he lived in our houses and we took as much
notice of him, the horse would prove quite as sagacious as the dog; but
we must never forget that to harshness or intimidation he is the most
sensitive of creatures, and even when in fault should be rather
cautioned than reproved.
An ounce of illustration is worth a pound of argument, and the following
example best conveys the spirit in which our brave and willing servant
should be treated by his lord.
Many years ago, when he hunted the Cottesmore country, Sir Richard
Sutton's hounds had been running hard from Glooston Wood along the
valley under Cranehoe by Slawston to Holt. After thirty minutes or so
over this beautiful, but exceedingly stiff line, their heads went up,
and they came to a check, possibly from their own dash and eagerness,
certainly, at that pace and amongst those fences, _not from being
overridden_.
"Turn 'em, Ben!" exclaimed Sir Richard, with a dirty coat, and Hotspur
in a lather, but determined not to lose a moment in getting after his
fox. "Yes, Sir Richard," answered Morgan, running his horse without a
moment's hesitation at a flight of double-posts and rails, with a ditch
in the middle and one on each side! The good grey, having gone in front
from the find, was perhaps a little blown, and dropping his hind legs in
the farthest ditch, rolled very handsomely into the next field. "It's
not _your_ fault, old man!" said Ben, patting his favourite on the neck
as they rose together in mutual good-will, adding in the same breath,
while he leapt to the saddle, and Tranby acknowledged the line--"Forrard
on, Sir Richard!--Hoic together, hoic! You'll have him directly, my
beauties! He's a Quorn fox, and he'll do you good!"
I had always considered Ben Morgan an unusually fine rider. For the
first time, I began to understand _why_ his horse never failed to carry
him so willingly and so well.
I do not remember whether Dick Webster was out with us that day, but I
am sure if he was he has not forgotten it, and I mention him as another
example of daring horsemanship combined with an imperturbable good
humour, almost verging on buffoonery, which seems to accept the most
dangerous falls as enhancing the fun afforded by a delightful game of
romps. His annual exhibition of prowess at the Islington horse show has
made his shrewd comical face so familiar to the public that his name,
without farther comment, is enough to recall the presence and bearing of
the man--his quips and cranks and merry jests, his shrill whistle and
ready smile, his strong seat and light, skilful hand, but above all his
untiring patience and unfailing kindness with the most restive and
refractory of pupils. Dick, like many other good fellows, is not so
young as he was, but he will probably be an unequalled rider at eighty,
and I am quite sure that if he lives to the age of Methuselah, the
extreme of senile irritability will never provoke him to lose his temper
with a horse.
Presence of mind under difficulties is the one quality that in riding
makes all the difference between getting off with a scramble and going
down with a fall. If unvaried kindness has taught your horse to place
confidence in his rider, he will have his wits about him, and provide
for _your_ safety as for his own. When left to himself, and not flurried
by the fear of punishment, even an inexperienced hunter makes surprising
efforts to keep on his legs, and it is not too much to say that while
his wind lasts, the veteran is almost as difficult to catch tripping as
a cat. I have known horses drop their hind legs on places scarcely
affording foothold for a goat, but in all such feats they have been
ridden by a lover of the animal, who trusts it implicitly, and rules by
kindness rather than fear.
I will not deny that there are cases in which the _suaviter in modo_
must be supplemented by the _fortiter in re_. Still the insubordination
of ignorance is never wholly inexcusable, and great discretion must be
used in repressing even the most violent of outbreaks. If severity is
absolutely required, be sure to temper justice with mercy, remembering
that, in brute natures at least, the more you spare the rod, the less
you spoil the child!