Ladies in the Field: Sketches of Sport. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ telling me to be sure never to ride my horse on the curb over a fence. But, as I suppose there is no absolute perfection in horse or man, each rider must, to a certain extent, judge for himself, and ride different horses in different ways. But you may be sure of this, that the bitting of grooms is generally too severe, and the hands of a man who rides all his horses in martingales, snaffles, and complicated arrangements of bit and bridle, are sure to be wrong. The matter practically resolves itself into hands. They, after all, are the chief essentials in riding. The "Butcher" on horseback who tugs at his horse's head as if it were a bedpost, who loses his temper, who digs in the spurs incessantly, and generally has a fight with his horse over every fence, invariably possesses bad hands as well as a bad temper. I believe the reason that women who ride hard generally get fewer falls than men, is to be accounted for by the fact that they leave their horse's head alone, do not interfere with and bully him, and are generally on good terms with their mounts. For this reason I disapprove strongly of women riding with spurs, and think that in most cases men would be better without them. I had a personal experience of this once, when I one day lent a very clever hunter, who had carried me perfectly, to the huntsman. He rode her with spurs, she went unkindly all day and refused several fences, a thing I had never known her do before. Many men are too fond of looking upon horses as machines, ignoring their wishes and peculiarities, whereas the true horseman is in thorough sympathy with the animal he bestrides, and contrives by some occult influence to inspire him with confidence and affection. A horse, bold as a lion with his master on his back, may very often refuse with a timid, nervous or weak rider. One man, like the late George Whyte Melville, can get the rawest of four-year-olds brilliantly over a country, while another finds difficulty even with an experienced hunter.

      I believe thoroughly in kindness and gentleness in stable management. I would dismiss at once a groom or helper who hit, or swore at, or knocked about a horse. Horses are very nervous creatures, and keenly susceptible to affection. I had once a beautiful chestnut hunter, quite thorough-bred, and a perfect picture, with a small, beautifully-shaped head, and large, gentle eye. He had evidently been fearfully ill-treated, for, if anyone came near him he would shrink into the corner of his box, tremble violently, and put his ears back from sheer nervousness. After a bit, seeing he was kindly treated, he learnt to follow me like a dog. Another mare, who came with the reputation of a vicious animal, and was supposed to bite all those who approached her, used, after a time, to eat nicely from my hand, much to the astonishment of her late master, who saw me go freely into her box. No man can be a really good rider who is not fond of horses, and does not care to study their peculiarities and tempers, and govern them rather by kind determination than by sheer ill-treatment.

      A lady rider should look to her bit before she starts, see that the curb chain is not too tight, and the bit in the proper position. She should visit her horse daily, and feed him in the stable till he knows her voice as well as one of mine did who, on hearing it, would rise up on his hind legs and try to turn himself round in his stall whinnying with pleasure. And, above all, she should study her saddle. Sore backs are the terrible curse of a hunting stable, and are generally produced by bad riding, hanging on to the stirrup, instead of rising when trotting, from the body, and sitting crooked on a badly-fitting saddle. The woman's seat should be a perfectly straight one. She should look, as she sits, exactly between the horse's ears, and, with the third pommel to give her assistance, she ought to maintain a perfect balance. Every lady's saddle should be made for her, as some women take longer saddles than others. The stuffing should be constantly seen to, and, while the girths are loosed, the saddle itself never taken off till the horse's back is cool. If it is a well-made saddle and does not come down too low on the withers, a horse should very rarely have a bad back. I have always preferred a saddle of which the seat was flat and in old days used to have mine stuffed a good deal at the back so as to prevent the feeling of riding uphill. Messrs Wilkinson & Champion now make saddles on that principle, on which one can sit most comfortably. Numnahs I do not care for, or if they are used they should only be a thin leather panel, well oiled, and kept soft and pliable.

      No lady should hunt till she can ride, by which I mean, till she can manage all sorts of horses, easy and difficult to ride, till she knows how to gallop, how to jump, and is capable of looking after herself. Half the accidents in the hunting field occur from women, who can scarcely ride, being put upon a hunter, and, while still perfectly inexperienced, told to ride to hounds. They may have plenty of courage but no knowledge. Whyte Melville depicts pluck as "a moral quality, the result of education, natural self-respect and certain high aspirations of the intellect;" and nerve "as a gift of nature, dependent on the health, the circulation and the liver. As memory to imagination in the student, so is nerve to pluck in the horseman." Women are remarkable for nerve, men for pluck. Women who ride are generally young and healthy. Youth is bold and inconscient of its danger. Yet few men or women have the cool courage of Jim Mason, who was seen galloping down a steep hill in Leicestershire, the reins on his horse's neck, his knife in his mouth, mending the lash of his whip. In fact, a good deal of the hard riding one sees is often due to what is called "jumping powder," or the imbibing of liqueurs and spirits. For hard riding, it should never be forgotten, is essentially not good riding. The fine old sportsman, ripened by experience, who, while quietly weighing the chances against him, and perfectly aware of the risks he runs, is yet ready to face them boldly, with all the resources of a cool head and a wide knowledge, is on the high road to being a hero. These calm, unassuming, courageous men are those who make their mark on the field of battle, and to whom the great Duke of Wellington referred when he spoke of the hunting field being the best school of cavalry in the world.

      Most of us want to fly before we can walk. This vaulting ambition accounts for the contemptible spectacles that occasionally meet our sight. A city man, who has had half-a-dozen riding lessons, an enriched tradesman, or an unsportmanlike foreigner, must needs start a stud of hunters. We all remember the immortal adventures of Jorrocks and Soapy Sponge, but how often do we see scenes quite as ludicrous as any depicted in Sartees' delightful volumes. Because everyone he knows goes across country, the novice believes fondly that he can do the same. He forgets that the real sportsman has ridden from earliest childhood; has taken his falls cheerfully off a pony; and learned how to ride without stirrups, often clinging on only bareback; has watched, while still a little chap in knickerbockers or white frocks, holding tight to the obliging nurse's hand, some of the mysteries of the stable; has seen the horses groomed and shod, physicked or saddled, with the keen curiosity and interest of childhood, and has grown up, as it were in the atmosphere of the stable. Every English boy, the son of a country gentleman, loves the scent of the hay, not perhaps poetically in the hay field, but practically in the manger. He knows the difference in the quality of oats, and the price of straw, the pedigree of the colts, and the performances of the mares, long before he has mastered the intricacies of Euclid, or the diction of Homer. To ride is to him as natural as to walk, and he acquires a seat and hands as unconsciously as the foals learn to trot and jump after their mother; and consequently, as riding is an art eminently necessary to be acquired in youth, everything is in his favour, when in after life the poor and plucky subaltern pits himself on his fifty-guinea screw against the city magnate riding his four-hundred-guinea hunter. Fortunately this is so, for riding, while entrancing to its votaries, is also an expensive amusement; yet so long as a man has a penny in his pocket that he can legitimately dispose of for amusement, so long would one wish him to spend it thus, for the moral qualities necessary to make a good rider are precisely those which have given England her superiority in the rank of nations. The Irish with their ardent and enthusiastic natures, are essentially lovers of horses; and an Irish hunter is without exception the cleverest in the world. He has generally a light mouth, always a leg to spare, and the nimbleness of a deer in leaping. Apropos of the latter quality, I remember the answer of an Irishman who was selling a horse, when asked if he could jump—

      "Is't lep, ye mane, yer honour? Well there never was a leper the likes of him!"

      "Does he feed well?"

      "Feed, yer honour? He'd fatten on a bowling alley!"

      Hunting in Ireland, while rougher and more unconventional, is certainly safer than in England. The fences are big, but you do not as a rule ride so fast at СКАЧАТЬ