Patroclus and Penelope: A Chat in the Saddle

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

The above is, of course, the crudest of methods compared with the best School systems, but if you have taught Nelly her side steps (or pirouettes), as I have described them to you, or in other words have to a certain extent suppled her forehand and croup by the proper flexions, you can start in a more certain way. You must not expect to succeed at once. Success depends upon Nelly's intelligence, your own patience, and the delicate perceptions of both. I assume that you will have already taught Nelly to canter whenever you wish her to do so, though she may have been selecting her own lead. Now, you can, of course, see, when you want her to canter, that if you keep her head straight with the reins and press upon her near flank with your leg, she will throw her croup away from your leg, and be for the moment out of the true line of advance. This is bad for the walk or the trot, but just what you want to induce her to start the canter with the off shoulder leading. For if you can keep her in this position until she takes the canter, she will be more apt to lead off with her right shoulder, because the forcing of her croup to the right has also pushed this shoulder in advance of the other. If at the same time she is traveling along a slope which runs up from her right, say the left side of the road, or on a circle turning to the right, she will be all the more apt to do this. You can aid her also by a little marked play with the right rein, which will tend to enliven that side, and by giving it increased action, aid in bringing it forward, even if not done with entire expertness.

A number of English writers state that the proper indication for the lead with the right foot is a tap of the whip on the right side, but this appears to be lacking in good theory, and might prove very confusing to a horse, despite the fact that the animal can be made to learn anything as an indication. A tap of the whip under the right elbow would be more consistent with the horse's action, although it is quite possible, as a feat, to teach a horse to lead with the off shoulder by pulling his off ear, or his tail, for the matter of that. But indications are best when they tally with a sound theory of the horse's motions.

Reverse causes will induce Nelly to lead with the left shoulder. Not, of course, at once. For though she will do it in a circle or figure eight, on the road she may still be often confused. It requires much time and practice to make her perfect. But once Nelly catches the idea, you can surely succeed in impressing it on her for good and all, and though she will blunder often enough, she will in the end learn it thoroughly.

When you start out to make Nelly lead off with one shoulder, be sure you accomplish your object. If she leads off with the other, stop her at once, and try again. Always succeed with a horse in what you undertake. If you cannot, on any given day, make Nelly lead right, do not let her canter at all, but keep her on a trot or a walk. It requires a number of successful trials to make it plain to the intelligence of a horse that he has done what you want, and is to do it again on similar indications. It is, therefore, well for him not to have to learn too many new lessons at once.

XLI

To change lead in motion is harder for the horse and rider both to learn, and there is no better test of a well-trained horse than an immediate and balanced change of lead on call. A canter is a gait somewhat similar to the gallop, though the feet move and come down in different progression. But at certain times one or more of the four feet are successively sustaining the weight, and there is an interval when the horse is unsupported in the air, or has only one hind foot upon the ground. It is this last period which the horse chooses in which to change his lead. Now, suppose you are cantering with Nelly's right shoulder leading, and want her to change to the left. If you press upon her right flank with your leg, she will want to shift her croup to the left. This will incline her naturally to turn her head to the right, which inclination you must counteract with as little motion as possible of the reins. Nelly will thus find that she is cantering uncomfortably to herself, and if you will keep along in this way for a few strides, she will very likely shift to her left lead, because the constraint of your leg and the bit are irksome while she continues to lead with the right, and she will try what she can do to get rid of the restraint. She certainly will change after a while, particularly if aided by the circle or slope, even if she does it because she does not know what else to do. And by rousing or lightening the left shoulder by a play of the left rein you will materially aid the change. So soon as she has changed, reward her by a few words, and canter along on the new lead.

The reverse accomplishes a similar result. It will probably take you many weeks to bring about all this. If you do it in a few weeks, you will succeed far beyond the average. But the process of teaching an intelligent horse, if you are patient, is as pleasant as the result of the lessons is agreeable, after they have had their due effect.

A horse should be so well trained as to be ready to turn with a "false" lead if you ask him to do so. Left to himself, he should take the proper lead at the moment of turning. But he must obey you to the extent of doing what he would otherwise not do, and should properly not do, if you give him the indication. And this without becoming confused, so as to fail to do the proper thing on the next occasion.

Though I by no means hold up Patroclus to-day as a model performer of School-paces, which I am perhaps too lazy to keep him as perfect in as I ought to do, the results of good training still remain. I sometimes, when out of sight, canter him quite a stretch, say quarter of a mile, changing lead, first every fourth stride, then every third stride, then every second, in regular rhythmic succession. If Patroclus fails to do this feat with exactness, I can always recognize my own error in too late an indication, rather than his in obeying it. It is possible to canter him very slowly with a change of lead at every stride, but such work is very exhausting to a horse, and I have not often done it. This latter feat must be done so slowly that the gait is properly not a canter; but Patroclus can perform the true canter, and change at every second step readily for several hundred yards.

There are undoubtedly many well-trained horses in Boston, very likely more highly trained ones than I am aware of; but certainly the great majority of saddle beasts possess scarcely the rudiments of an education. This seems to be a pity, when it requires so little labor to give them one, if their owners will but learn how to do so.

Not long ago a friend of mine, and an old rider too, was exhibiting to me a recently purchased horse, for whom he had paid a high price, because he was said to have come fresh from the hands of some noted trainer. The horse would fall into a canter with his own lead readily enough, but when, after a struggle of some hundred yards, he was made to lead with the foot selected by the rider, it was thought to be a triumph of cleverness. Is not this a common case? And would it not be well to rectify it?

XLII

There are a number of little exercises which you ought by no means to omit, as, for instance, practicing Nelly in backing quickly, handily, and without losing her balance. This is only to be done by slow degrees, a few steps at a time, and by generously rewarding progress as she increases her number of backward steps. Never force her. Use persuasion only. In doing this, watch that she is always well poised. Otherwise she cannot back properly. You must also teach her, by that use of the reins and legs which you will already have learned, to change direction as she backs, as easily as she does in moving forward. These necessary things she has already been crudely taught in her breaking-in.

If Nelly has the pride of a courageous horse, as I should judge by her bright eye that she had, she will be fairly greedy of kind words and caresses. And I trust you will never allow her to become afraid of the whip. You should be able to switch your whip all about her face without her heeding it. Reward goes much farther than punishment. The latter needs very rarely to be resorted to. I have never used it, barring in isolated cases, but what afterwards I was ashamed of it, and not infrequently I have made most sincere apology and amends to the sufferer. But the harm done has always been hard to eradicate. An impatient man quickly loses his standing in the confidence and affection of an intelligent horse. In your training, a whip will be much more useful than a crop. The latter is but a badge of fashion, of absolutely no use on the road, and of but little in education.

Now, Tom, I have suggested to you a number of very crude rules for training your mare. Like Captain Jack Bunsby I ought to add that "the bearings of this observation lays in the application on it." But by the patient aid of even these simple methods, intelligently used, you will have given Nelly an easy mouth, you will have suppled her forehand and croup, and you will have taught her to canter with either foot in the lead.

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.