Practical Horsemanship |
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animal Arab become blunder body bring brute canter carriage certainly coming course Cumberland Gate curb bit curb chain double bridle effect fast feet fence firm seat foot fore gallop gentleman give ground habit hack hand haunches heel hold horse going horse's head horse's mouth horseman horsemanship hounds hunter hunting HUNTING SEATS inches ipse dixit Jessamy Jessy jockey keep kick Latchford learn hands look martingale matter miles mode motion mounting neck never Newmarket nose obey object occasions ordinary pace Pelham perfect perfectly perhaps persons plunging practice prevent Prinny probably pull punished race racehorse reader rein ridden rider road riding rode Rotten Row saddle safe short side snaffle sort Spanish jennet spurs step stirrup leather striking stumble suppose taught temper thing trip trot trotter turn walk ware sheep whip wish
Popular passages
Page 202 - We have set in a cariole and driven a Canadian pacer, at the rate of a mile in two minutes and a half, on the icy plains of Lake Erie, and as we held the reins, have thought we could not enjoy a more exquisite pleasure. That experience, however, was ours long before we had ever seen a genuine salmon ; we are somewhat wiser now, for we have acquired the art of driving through the pure white foam even...
Page 56 - I rode the whole of one season and the first half of another with foxhounds without stirrups, and that part of my second season on full-sized horses. The advantage of this mode of instruction is, that it teaches, or in fact obliges, a boy to balance his body, and sit still and firm in his seat, without any other aid than nature has supplied him with; and it obliges him to keep his legs motionless; for should he hold so loosely by his knees and thighs as to allow his legs to move or swing backwards...
Page 76 - ... for road purposes. I would fix the standard for such a horse at fifteen hands ; certainly not more. The more breeding he has the better, with as much strength as can be got without bordering on coarseness. He should be particularly neat and pretty ; handsome is a term I should use to large horses. He should be long in proportion to his height, that length made out by the distance from the back of the wither to the bosom, and from the hip bone to the extremity of the haunch. This gives strength,...
Page 110 - Some saddlers are famous for giving a roomy and easy seat to the rider on the saddles they make, others quite the reverse, though their saddles are quite as heavy as the well-proportioned one, and are only fit to send to a West India planter to ride on about his sugar plantations, mounted on a mule. I will give the reader a hint, by attending to which he will derive considerable advantage ; (it is on a trifling difference in the lower flap of a saddle, yet one I never saw attended to by the best...
Page 15 - ... or not ; but when I was put on the back of a very highly-dressed manege horse, and was directed what to do with rein and heel, and when the voice and whip of the professor induced the horse to rear, put his two fore feet on the wall, and in that position using hind and fore feet perpetrate a kind of sidelong canter half way down the school, I was not a little astonished, and found sitting leaps over hurdles, gates, and fences much more easy than balancing my body in this rampant crablike pace,...
Page 60 - ... in hand ; and if we were to select from the best riding boys in all the stables at Newmarket, we should not find one who could, like the dealer's lad, jump on a horse and ride him bare-backed ; at all events, he could not ride him well ; and indeed I should say the chances are he would tumble off. So much for learning in one way only. Now the dealer's lad could not ride a racehorse as well as the other, but he could ride him ; and when merely following a head lad, probably he would ride him tolerably...
Page 17 - ... they do so like men accustomed to do it ; but they do not do so like a dragoon. He is taught but one way of taking up his bridle rein and one way of mounting his horse ; the others take their rein up in a seemingly careless way, but still in a proper one. The troop horse is trained to stand still til] mounted, and has a hint to move on ; so the same precise way of mounting can always be practised. But the race or steeple-chase horses, and hunter, c are not thus obedient ; some from vice will...
Page 100 - ... massive harness of the horses of the sovereign finery — that is part of a gorgeous pageant befitting royalty on state occasions ; so are a state carriage, state harness, and state liveries, quite in character with a nobleman going to court : but, on ordinary occasions, nothing bespeaks a little mind more than finery, and particularly so in regard to horse equipments. Such should ever be in accordance with circumstances ; for instance, highly and heavily ornamented harness, brass or plated,...
Page 44 - ... comes quite a different gentleman, and ridden quite in a different manner. He comes his up gallop at a rattling pace, because he can't help it; his ears close down on his poll, his tail switching, not from vice, for he is a good-tempered horse, but a lurching sluggish rogue ; if he was induced to show any trick, it would probably be bolting somewhere, if not well watched, when the pace became too fast to please him. His jockey we see sitting down in his saddle, his legs rather back, so as to...
Page 62 - ... or of course learnt ; for training stables are the only places where a boy can become acquainted with the habits, tempers, style of going, and powers of speed of the racehorse ; and, what is of quite as much consequence as all these put together, it is the best school to enable him to become a good judge of pace. Without these acquirements no man can ever be a jockey. Having thus far answered the supposed remark, I hope it will be borne in mind, that, although I said jockeys have mostly been...