Riding Recollections, 5th ed. Part 3

Still the "h. f." would be nothing without his spurs, and I grant that to him these instruments are indispensable, if he is to get from one field to another; but of what use are they to such men as Mr. Gilmour, Captain Coventry, Sir Frederic Johnston, Captain Boyce, Mr. Hugh Lowther, and a host more that I could name, who seem to glide over Leicesters.h.i.+re, and other strongly-fenced countries, as a bird glides through the air. Day after day, unless accidentally scored in a fall, you may look in vain for a spur-mark on their horses sides. Shoulders and quarters, indeed, are reddened by gashes from a hundred thorns; but the virgin spot, a handsbreadth behind the girths, is pure and stainless still. Yet not one of the gentlemen I have named will ride without the instrument he uses so rarely, if at all; and they must cherish, therefore, some belief in its virtue, when called into play, strong enough to counterbalance its indisputable disadvantages--notably, the stabbing of a hunter's side, when its rider's foot is turned outwards by a stake or grower, and the tearing of its back or quarters in the struggle and confusion of a fall. There is one excellent reason that, perhaps, I may have overlooked. It is tiresome to answer the same question over and over again, and in a field of 200 sportsmen you are sure to be asked almost as many times, "Why don't you wear spurs?" if you set appearances at defiance by coming into the hunting-field without them.

In my personal recollection I can only call to mind one man who systematically abjured so essential a finish to the horseman's dress and equipment. This was Mr. Tomline of Leigh Lodge, a Leicesters.h.i.+re farmer and horse-dealer, well-known some thirty years ago as one of the finest riders and straightest goers that ever got into a saddle. His costume, indeed, was not of so careful a nature that want of completeness in any one particular could spoil the general effect. He _always_ hunted in a rusty, worn pilot-jacket, drab breeches with strings untied, brown-topped boots, and a large ill-fitting hat, carrying in his hand a ground-ash plant, totally useless for opening a gate if he did not happen to jump it. Yet thus accoutred, and generally on a young one, so long as his horse's condition lasted, he was sure to be in front, and, when the fences were rougher than common, with but two or three companions at most.

I have not yet forgotten the style in which I once saw him coax a four-year-old to jump a "bottom" under Launde, fortified by a high post and rail--down-hill--a bad take off--and almost a ravine on the far side! With his powerful grip and exquisite handling, he seemed to persuade the pupil that it was as willing as the master.

My own spurs were four inches long, and I was riding the best hunter in my stable, but I don't think I would have had the same place for fifty pounds!

A paradox, like an Irishman's bull, will sometimes convey our meaning more impressively than a logical statement. It seems paradoxical, yet I believe it is sound sense to say that no man should arm his heels with spurs unless he is so good a rider as to be sure they shall not touch his horse. To punish him with them involuntarily is, of course, like any other blunder totally inadmissible, but when applied with intention, they should be used sparingly and only as a last resource. That there _are_ occasions on which they rouse a horse's energies for a momentary effort, I am disposed to admit less from my own experience than the opinion of those for whose practical knowledge in all such matters I have the greatest respect. Both the Messrs. Coventry, in common with other first-rate steeple-chase riders, advocate their use on rare occasions and under peculiar circ.u.mstances. Poor Jem Mason never went hunting without them, and would not, I think, have hesitated to apply them pretty freely if required, but then these could all spur their horses in the right place, leaning back the while and altering in no way the force and bearing of hand or seat. Most men, on the contrary, stoop forward and let their horses' heads go when engaged in this method of compulsion, and even if their heels _do_ reach the mark, by no means a certainty, gain but little with the rowels compared to all they lose with the reins.

There is no fault in a hunter so annoying to a man whose heart is in the sport as a tendency _to refuse_. It utterly defeats the timid and damps the courage of the bold, while even to him who _rides_ that he may hunt rather than _hunts_ that he may _ride_, it is intensely provoking, as he is apt to lose by it that start which is so invaluable in a quick thing, and, when a large field are all struggling for the same object, so difficult to regain. This perversity of disposition too, is very apt to be displayed at some fence that will not admit of half-measures, such as a rail low enough to jump, but too strong to break, or a ditch so wide and deep that it must not be attempted as a standing leap. In these cases a vigorous dig with the spurs at the last moment will sometimes have an excellent effect. But it must not be trusted as an unfailing remedy. Nearly as many hunters will resent so broad a hint, by stopping short, and turning restive, as will spring generously forward, and make a sudden effort in answer to the appeal. For this, as for every other requirement of equitation, much depends on an insight into his character, whom an enthusiastic friend of mine designates "the bolder and wiser animal of the two."

Few men go out hunting with the expectation of encountering more than one or two falls in the best of runs, although the score sometimes increases very rapidly, when a good and gallant horse is getting tired towards the finish. Twenty "croppers" in a season, if he is well-mounted, seems a high average for the most determined of bruisers, but a man, whom circ.u.mstances impel to ride whatever he can lay hands on, must take into consideration how he can best rise from the ground unhurt with no less forethought than he asks his way to the meet or inquires into the condition of his mount. To such a bold rider the spur may seem an indispensable article, but he must remember that even if its application should save him on occasion, which I am not altogether prepared to admit, the appendage itself is most inconvenient when down.

I cannot remember a single instance of a man's foot remaining fixed in the stirrup who was riding without spurs. I do not mean to say such a catastrophe is impossible, but I have good reason to know that the buckle on the instep, which when brightly polished imparts such a finish to the l.u.s.trous wrinkles of a well-made boot, is extremely apt to catch in the angle of the stirrup iron, and hold us fast at the very moment when it is most important to our safety we should be free.

I have headed this chapter "The Abuse of the Spur," because I hold that implement of horsemans.h.i.+p to be in general most unmercifully abused, so much so that I believe it would be far better for the majority of horses, and riders too, if it had never come into vogue. The perfect equestrian may be trusted indeed with rowels sharp and long as those that jingle at the Mexican's heels on his boundless prairies, but, as in the days of chivalry, these ornaments should be won by prowess to be worn with honour; and I firmly believe that nine out of every ten men who come out hunting would be better and more safely carried if they left their spurs at home.

CHAPTER V.

HAND.

What is it? Intellect, nerve, sympathy, confidence, skill? None of these can be said to const.i.tute this quality; rather it is a combination of all, with something superinduced that can only be called a magnetic affinity between the aggressive spirit of man and the ductile nature of the beast.

"He spurred the old horse, and _he held him tight_, And leaped him out over the wall,"

says Kingsley, in his stirring ballad of "The Knight's Last Leap at Alten-ahr;" and Kingsley, an excellent rider himself, thus described exactly how the animal should have been put at its formidable fence.

Most poets would have let their horse's head go--the loose rein is a favourite method of making play in literature--and a fatal refusal must have been the result. The German Knight, however, whose past life seems to have been no less disreputable than his end was tragic, had not

"Lived by the saddle for years a score,"

to fail in his horsemans.h.i.+p at the finish, and so, when he came to jump his last fence, negotiated it with no less skill than daring--grim, quiet, resolute, strong of seat, and firm of hand. The latter quality seems, however, much the rarer of the two. For ten men who can stick to the saddle like Centaurs you will hardly find one gifted with that nicety of touch which horses so willingly obey, and which, if not inborn, seems as difficult to acquire by practice as the draughtsman's eye for outline, or the musician's ear for sound. Attention, reflection, painstaking, and common sense, can, nevertheless, do much; and, if the brain will only take the trouble to think, the clumsiest fingers that ever mismanaged a bridle may be taught in time to humour it like a silken thread.

I have been told, though I never tried the experiment, that if you take bold chanticleer from his perch, and, placing his bill on a table, draw from it a line of chalk by candle-light, the poor dazed fowl makes no attempt to stir from this imaginary bondage, persuaded that it is secured by a cord it has not strength enough to break. We should never get on horseback without remembering this unaccountable illusion; our control by means of the bridle is, in reality, little more substantial than the chalk-line that seems to keep the bird in durance. It should be our first consideration so to manage the rein we handle as never to give our horse the opportunity of discovering our weakness and his own strength.

How is this to be effected? By letting his head go, and allowing him to carry us where he will? Certainly not, or we should have no need for the bridle at all. By pulling at him, then, with main strength, and trying the muscular power of our arms against that of his shoulders and neck?

Comparing these relative forces again, we are constrained to answer, Certainly not; the art of control is essentially founded on compromise.

In riding, as in diplomacy, we must always be ready to give an inch that we may take an ell. The first principle of horsemans.h.i.+p is to make the animal believe we can rule its wildest mood; the next, to prevent, at any sacrifice, the submission of this plausible theory to proof. You get on a horse you have never seen before, improperly bitted, we may fairly suppose, for few men would think of wasting as many seconds on their bridle as they devote minutes to their boots and breeches. You infer, from his wild eye and restless ear that he is "a bit of a romp;" and you observe, with some concern, that surrounding circ.u.mstances, a race, a review, a coursing-meeting, or a sure find, it matters little which, are likely to rouse all the tumultuous propensities of his nature. Obviously it would be exceedingly bad policy to have the slightest misunderstanding. The stone of Sisyphus gathered impetus less rapidly than does a horse who is getting the better of his rider; and John Gilpin was not the first equestrian, by a good many, for whom

"The trot became a gallop soon, In spite of curb and rein."

"I am the owner, I wish I could say the _master_, of the four best hunters I ever had in my life," wrote one of the finest hors.e.m.e.n in Europe to a brother proficient in the art; and although so frank an avowal would have seemed less surprising from an inferior performer, his friend, who was also in the habit of riding anything, anywhere, and over everything, doubtless understood perfectly what he meant.

Now in equitation there can be no divided empire; and the horse will most a.s.suredly be master if the man is not. In the interests of good government, then, beware how you let your authority literally slip through your fingers, for, once lost, it will not easily be regained.

Draw your reins gently to an equal length, and ascertain the precise bearing on your horse's mouth that seems, while he is yet in a walk, to influence his action without offending his sensitiveness. But this cannot be accomplished with the hands alone; these members, though supposed to be the prime agents of control, will do little without the a.s.sistance of legs and knees pressing the sides and flanks of the animal, so as to urge him against the touch of his bit, from which he will probably show a tendency to recoil, and, as it is roughly called, "forcing him into his bridle."

The absence of this leg-power is an incalculable disadvantage to ladies, and affords the strongest reason, amongst many, why they should be mounted only on temperate and perfectly broken horses. How much oftener would they come to grief but that their seat compels them to ride with such long reins as insure light hands, and that their finer sympathy seems fully understood and gratefully appreciated by the most sympathetic of all the brute creation!

The style adopted by good horsewomen, especially in crossing a country, has in it much to be admired, something, also, to be deprecated and deplored. They allow their horses plenty of liberty, and certainly interfere but little with their heads, even at the greatest emergencies; but their ideas of pace are unreasonably liberal, and they are too apt to "chance it" at the fences, encouraging with voice and whip the haste that in the last few strides it is judicious to repress. It seems to me they are safer in a "bank-and-ditch" country than amongst the high strong fences of the grazing districts, where a horse must be roused and held together that he may jump well up in the air, and extend himself afterwards, so as to cover the wide "uncertainties" he may find on the landing side. For a bank he is pretty sure to collect himself without troubling his rider; and this is, perhaps, why Irishmen, as a general rule, use such light bridles.

Now, a woman cannot possibly bring her horse up to a high staked-and-bound fence, out of deep ground, with the strength and resolution of a man, whose very grip in the saddle seems to extort from the animal its utmost energies. Half measures are fatal in a difficulty, and, as she seems unable to interfere with good effect she is wise to let it alone.

We may learn from her, however, one of the most effective secrets of the whole art, and that is, to ride with long reins. "Always give them plenty of rope," said poor Jem Mason, when instructing a beginner; and he certainly practised what he preached. I have seen his hands carried so high as to be level with his elbows, _but his horse's head was always in the right place_; and to this must be attributed the fact that, while he rode to hounds straighter than anybody else, he got comparatively few falls. A man with long reins not only affords his horse greater liberty at his fences, but allows him every chance of recovery should he get into difficulties on landing, the rider not being pulled with a jerk on the animal's neck and shoulders, so as to throw both of them down, when they ought to have got off with a scramble.

Let us return to the horse you have lately mounted, not without certain misgivings that he may be tempted to insubordination under the excitement of tumult, rivalry, or noise. When you have discovered the amount of repression, probably very slight, that he accepts without resentment, at a walk, increase your pace gradually, still with your legs keeping him well into his bridle, carrying your hands low down on his withers, and, if you take my advice, with a rein in each. You will find this method affords you great control of your horse's head, and enables you, by drawing the bit through his mouth, to counteract any arrangement on his part for a dead pull, which could have but one result. Should you, moreover, find it necessary to jump, you can thus hold him perfectly straight at his fences, so that he must either decline altogether or go exactly _where you put him_. Young, headstrong horses are exceedingly apt to swerve from the place selected for them, and to rise sideways at some strong bit of timber, or impracticable part of a bullfinch; and this is a most dangerous experiment, causing the worst kind of falls to which the sportsman is liable.

Riding thus two-handed, you will probably find your new acquaintance "bends" to you in his canter better than in his trot, and if so, you may safely push him to a gallop, taking great care, however, not to let him extend himself too much. When he goes on his shoulders, he becomes a free agent; so long as his haunches are under him, you can keep him, as it is called, "in your hand."

There is considerable scope for thought in this exercise of manual skill, and it is always wise to save labour of body by use of brain.

Take care then, to have your front clear, so that your horse may flatter himself he is leading his comrades, when he will not give you half so much trouble to retain him in reasonable bounds. Strategy is here required no less than tactics, and horsemans.h.i.+p even as regards the bridle, is quite as much a matter of head as hand. If you are out hunting, and have got thus far on good terms, you will probably now be tempted to indulge in a leap. We cannot, unfortunately, select these obstacles exactly as we wish; it is quite possible your first fence may be high, strong, and awkward, with every probability of a fall. Take your horse at it quietly, but resolutely, in a canter, remembering that the quicker and _shorter_ his strides, while gathering _impetus_, the greater effort he can make when he makes his spring. Above all, measure with your eye, and endeavour to show him by the clip of your thighs, and the sway of your body, exactly where he should take off. On this important point depends, almost entirely, the success of your leap. Half a stride means some six or seven feet; to leave the ground that much too soon adds the width of a fair-sized ditch to his task, and if the sum total prove too much for him you cannot be surprised at the result. This is, I think, one of the most important points in horsemans.h.i.+p as applied to riding across a country. It is a detail in which Lord Wilton particularly excels, and although so good a huntsman must despise a compliment to his mere riding, I cannot refrain from mentioning Tom Firr, as another proficient who possesses this enviable knack in an extraordinary degree.

Many of us can remember "Cap" Tomline, a professional "rough rider,"

living at or near Billesdon, within the last twenty years, as fine a horseman as his namesake, whom I have already mentioned, and a somewhat lighter weight. For one sovereign, "Cap," as we used to call him, was delighted to ride anybody's horse under any circ.u.mstances, over, or into any kind of fence the owner chose to point out. After going brilliantly through a run, I have seen him, to my mind most injudiciously, desired to lark home alongside, while we watched his performance from the road.

He was particularly fond of timber, and notwithstanding that his horse was usually rash, inexperienced, or bad-tempered, otherwise he would not have been riding him, I can call to mind very few occasions on which I saw him down. One unusually open winter, when he hunted five and six days a week from October to April, he told me he had only fifteen falls, and that taking the seasons as they came, thirteen was about his average. Nor was he a very light-weight--spare, lengthy, and muscular, he turned twelve stone in his hunting clothes, which were by no means of costly material. Horses rarely refused with him, and though they often had a scramble for it, as seldom fell, but under his method of riding, sitting well down in the saddle, with the reins in both hands, they never took off wrong, and in this lay the great secret of his superiority. When I knew him he was an exceedingly temperate man; for many years I believe he drank only water, and he eschewed tobacco in every form. "The reason you gentlemen have such _bad nerves_," he said to me, jogging home to Melton one evening in the dusk that always meets us about Somerby, "is because you smoke so much. It turns your brains to a kind of vapour!" the inference was startling, I thought, and not complimentary, but there might be some truth in it nevertheless.

We have put off a great deal of time at our first fence, let us do it without a fall, if we can.

When a hunter's quarters are under him in taking off, he has them ready to help him over any unforeseen difficulty that may confront him on the other side. Should there be a bank from which he can get a purchase for a second effort, he will poise himself on it lightly as a bird, or perhaps, dropping his hind-legs only, shoot himself well into the next field, with that delightful elasticity which, met by a corresponding action of his rider's loins, imparts to the horseman such sensations of confidence and dexterity as are felt by some buoyant swimmer, wafted home on the roll of an incoming wave. Strong hocks and thighs, a mutual predilection for the chase, a bold heart between the saddle-flaps, another under the waistcoat, and a pair of light hands, form a combination that few fences after Christmas are strong enough or blind enough to put down.

And now please not to forget that soundest of maxims, applicable to all affairs alike by land or sea--"While she lies her course, let the s.h.i.+p steer herself." If your horse is going to his own satisfaction, do not be too particular that he should go entirely to yours. So long as you can steady him, never mind that he carries his head a little up or a little down. If he shakes it you know you have got him, and can pull him off in a hundred yards. Keep your hands quiet and not too low. It is a well-known fact, of which, however, many draughtsmen seem ignorant, that the horse in action never puts his fore-feet beyond his nose. You need only watch the finish of a race to be satisfied of this, and indeed the Derby winner in his supreme effort is almost as straight as an old-fas.h.i.+oned frigate, from stem to stern, while a line dropped perpendicularly from his muzzle would exactly touch the tips of his toes. Now, if your hands are on each side of your horse's withers, you make him bend his neck so much as to contract his stride within three-quarter speed, whereas when you carry them about the level of your own hips, and nearly as far back, he has enough freedom of head to extend himself without getting beyond your control, and room besides to look about him, of which be sure he will avail himself for your mutual advantage.

I have ridden hunters that obviously found great pleasure in watching hounds, and, except to measure their fences, would never take their eyes off the pack from field to field, so long as we could keep it in sight.

These animals too, were, invariably fine jumpers, free, generous, light-hearted, and as wise as they were bold.

I heard a very superior performer once remark that he not only rode every horse differently, but he rode the same horse differently at every fence.

All I can say is, he used to ride them all in the same place, well up with the hounds, but I think I understand what he meant. He had his system of course, like every other master of the art, but it admitted of endless variations according to circ.u.mstances and the exigencies of the case. No man, I conclude, rides so fast at a wall as a brook, though he takes equal pains with his handling in both cases, if in a different way, nor would he deny a half-tired animal that support, amounting even to a dead pull, which might cause a hunter fresh out of his stable to imagine his utmost exertions were required forthwith. Nevertheless, whether "lobbing along" through deep ground at the punis.h.i.+ng period, when we wish our fun was over, or fingering a rash one delicately for his first fence, a stile, we will say, downhill with a bad take-off, when we could almost wish it had not begun, we equally require such a combination of skill, science, and sagacity, or rather common-sense, as goes by the name of "hand." When the player possesses this quality in perfection it is wonderful how much can be done with the instrument of which he holds the strings. I remember seeing the Reverend John Bower, an extraordinarily fine rider of the last generation, hand his horse over an ugly iron-bound stile, on to some stepping-stones, with a drop of six or seven feet, into a Leicesters.h.i.+re lane, as calmly as if the animal had been a lady whom he was taking out for a walk. He pulled it back into a trot, sitting very close and quiet, with his hand raised two or three inches above the withers, and I can still recall, as if I had seen it yesterday, the curve of neck and quarters, as, gently mouthing the bit, that well-broken hunter poised lightly for its spring, and landing in the same collected form, picked its way daintily, step by step, down the declivity, like a cat. There was a large field out, but though Leicesters.h.i.+re then, as now, had no lack of bold and jealous riders, who could use heads, hands, and beyond all, their heels, n.o.body followed him, and I think the attempt was better left alone.

Another clergyman of our own day, whose name I forbear mentioning, because I think he would dislike it for professional reasons, has the finest bridle-hand of any one I know. "_You good man_," I once heard a foreigner observe to this gentleman, in allusion to his bold style of riding; "_it no matter if you break your neck!_" And although I cannot look on the loss of such valuable lives from the same point of view as this Continental moralist, I may be permitted to regret the present scarcity of clergymen in the hunting-field. It redounds greatly to their credit, for we know how many of them deny themselves a harmless pleasure rather than offend "the weaker brethren," but what a dog in the manger must the weaker brother be!

I have never heard that these "hunting parsons," as they are called, neglect the smallest detail of duty to indulge in their favourite sport, but when they _do_ come out you may be sure to see them in the front rank. Can it be that the weaker brother is jealous of his pastor's superiority in the saddle? I hope not. At any rate it seems unfair to cavil at the enjoyment by another of the pursuit we affect ourselves.

Let us show more even-handed justice, if not more charity, and endeavour at least to follow the good man's example in the parish, though we are afraid to ride his line across the fields.

It would be endless to enter on all the different styles of horsemans.h.i.+p in which fine hands are of the utmost utility. On the race-course, for instance, it seems to an outsider that the whole performance of the jockey is merely a dead pull from end to end. But only watch the lightest urchin that is flung on a two-year-old to scramble home five furlongs as fast as ever he can come; you will soon be satisfied that even in these tumultuous flights there is room for the display of judgment, patience, though briefly tried, and manual skill.

The same art is exercised on the light smooth snaffle, held in tenacious grasp, that causes the heavily-bitted charger to dance and "pa.s.sage" in the school. It differs only in direction and degree. As much dexterity is required to prevent some playful flyer recently put in training from breaking out in a game of romps, when he ought to be minding his business in "the string" as to call forth the well-drilled efforts of a war-horse, answering wrist and leg with disciplined activity, ready to "rein back," "pa.s.s," "wheel,"--

"And high curvet that not in vain, The sword-sway may descend amain On foeman's casque below."

Chifney, the great jockey of his day, wrote an elaborate treatise on handling, laying down the somewhat untenable position, that even a racehorse should be held as if with a silken thread.

I have noticed, too, that our best steeplechase riders have particularly fine hands when crossing a country with hounds; nor does their professional practice seem to make them over-hasty at their fences, when there is time to do these with deliberation. I imagine that to ride a steeplechase well, over a strong line, is the highest possible test of what we may call "all-round" horsemans.h.i.+p. My own experience in the silk jacket has been of the slightest; and I confess that, like Falstaff with his reasons, I never fancied being rattled quite so fast at my fences "on compulsion."

One of the finest pieces of riding I ever witnessed was in a steeplechase held at Melton, as long ago as the year 1864, when, happening to stand near the brook, _eighteen feet of water_, I observed my friend Captain Coventry come down at it. Choosing sound ground and a clear place, for it was already beginning to fill with numerous compet.i.tors, he set his horse going, at about a hundred yards from the brink; in the most masterly manner, increasing the pace resolutely but gradually, so as not to flurry or cause the animal to change his leg, nearly to full speed before he took off. I could not have believed it possible to make a horse go so fast in so collected a form; but with the rider's strength in the saddle, and perfectly skilful hands, he accomplished the feat, and got well over, I need hardly say, in his stride.

But, although a fine "bridle-hand," as it is called, proves of such advantage to the horseman in the hurry-skurry of a steeplechase or a very quick thing with hounds, its niceties come more readily under the notice of an observer on the road than in the field. Perhaps the Ride in Hyde Park is the place of all others where this quality is most appreciated, and, shall we add? most rarely to be found. A perfect Park hack, that can walk or canter five miles an hour, no light criterion of action and balance, should also be so well broke, and so well ridden, as to change its leg, if asked to do so, at every stride. "With woven paces," if not "with waving arms," I have seen rider and horse threading in and out the trees that bisect Rotten Row, without missing _one_, for half a mile on end; the animal leading with near or off leg, as it inclined to left or right, guided only by the inflection of the rider's body, and the touch, too light to be called a pressure, of his knee and leg. How seldom does one see a horse ridden properly round a corner. He is usually allowed to turn on his shoulders, with his hind-legs too far back to be of the slightest a.s.sistance if he slips or stumbles, and should the foothold be greasy, as may happen in London streets, down he comes flat on his side. Even at a walk, or slow trot, he should be collected, and his outer flank pressed inwards by his rider's heel, so that the motive power in hocks and thighs is kept under his own body, and the weight on his back. In the canter it stands to reason that he should lead with the inner leg, otherwise it is very possible he may cross the other over it, and fall like a lump of lead.