CHAPTER VII.. The Pleasure Horse.

THE PLEASURE HORSE.

I. THE BENT LEG.

The human mind may be likened unto a stable with horses all in a row. That strong team Tradition and Custom are overworked. Bias and Prejudice have plenty to do. Passion and Vice get an occasional airing, and Vanity has daily exercise. But Reason is kept in his stall, the master's own mount, stale for want of use. He is not popular with the other horses, he is not easily ridden, is heavy to handle, and goes painfully lame from having been kicked too much.

Let us try him:

THE BENT LEG. So far we have traced the straight leg method of riding from savage life through the Greek practice and that of the Ages of Armour. We have seen the European war seat and war saddle adapt themselves to range practice in wild countries, and so become the basis of outdoor horsemastership.

{208}

In sharp contrast to the straight leg and weight distributing saddle which has always attended the use of the European horse, is the universal practice associated in all ages with the Bay horse of Africa, and the Dun horse of Asia. My bits and scraps of reading present a general picture of the Oriental horseman as highly perched, with a bent leg and a long reach, preferring light scale or chain mail to heavy armour, prone to a swift onset, a brisk melée, and speedy disengagement since the days of the Parthian cavalry down to the Moslem conquests, and on to the chivalry of India, the cossacks of Russia, and the hapless Dervishes of the Soudan. From Mongolia to Morocco across the whole breadth of the Oriental World this high perch, bent leg and long reach seem to be universal in all ages.

In arid countries the ass and the camel were ridden long before the pony, and it seems quite possible that their pad saddles were transferred to the horse without much alteration. My first impression of this was during a donkey race in Portugal. Our mounts stood well over fifteen hands, magnificent animals. The saddle was a broad flat pad like that of women athletes in a circus, and, gripping its sides with one's calves, the seat was fairly secure. {209} Anyway a galloping ass is a deal better ride than a bullock. I was winning the race when my moke, being of the Moslem faith, knelt down to say his prayers, and I went on alone.

From watching Moors, Cossacks, Jockeys and other bent-leg horsemen I have an impression that a similar halt of the steed for a moments' prayer would have the same effect; but that the Spanish Picador, meanest of the straight-leg riders, would manage to stay in the saddle.

In the days of armour the gentleman-at-arms wore doublet and trunk hose, riding light horses for hunting, hawking, or even travel. Ladies rode also, and there was cantering where the ground permitted. But I cannot recall any mention of jumping in England until the time of the Civil War. Prince Rupert escaped a pursuit of heavy cavalry by jumping. A fugitive cavalier pursued by Roundheads, leapt from Wenlock Edge.

By this time a few Barbs, and Eastern horses alleged to be Arabian, had added a new strain to the English stock. Oliver Cromwell, for instance, a notable breeder before he went into politics, had an imported sire. The thoroughbred, who is 7/8 Arabian by blood, made jumping possible.

{210}

In the days of Queen Elizabeth England was still a sheep range, producing wool as the staple industry, and supporting five million people. Sufficient grain was raised for feeding the small population; and to keep the sheep off their crops the people had invented a fence peculiar to Britain. This fence consisted of an earthwork of ridge and ditch called a hedgerow. The ridge carries, and the ditch waters, a row of bushes, trimmed yearly to make it strong and dense, and known as a hedge. Unlike rigid fences the hedge may be safely jumped by horses who have the courage.

As the population increased the swamps were drained and forests cleared for farming and, outside the sheep down, the whole country was meshed with an intricate small skein of hedges.

At a period when guns were very short of range, and poison was still dear, the foxes became abundant and destructive, so that a special hound had to be bred able to run them down. This was a matter of business until foxes made it a sport, and from about 1740 survived as sportsmen rather than be extinct as merely vermin. There was no detriment to the land from hunting on winter fallows; and, but for the fox, our people would have been {211} driven to invent some other way of breaking their necks to let off surplus energy.

For rich people there is no cleaner or healthier form of pleasure, no better training in nerve and all that makes a man.

The training for leadership among the Germans is a matter of beer and fencing, among the Americans of office work, among the British of field sports. Which method is best to save leaders of men from corruption, and decadence? The mettle of our pastures gives cool judgment in administration, leadership in affairs, and in times of peril a sterling worth of manhood proof against disaster.

Far be it from me then to deride the British horsemanship. Any horseman who can tolerate so slippery and unreliable a contraption as the English saddle is greatly to be envied and admired.

Always a timid horseman but emulous, I made two attempts to ride the damned thing, and came to grief without the least delay. The third try was quite a success, the occasion being a cavalry charge into a converging fire at point-blank range. I was much too scared to fall off, and so came to the conclusion that any fool could ride anything if his attention were sufficiently distracted by a hail of bullets. {212} After that I went to the best horseman I could find in England and asked him to explain the merits of his saddle. "The English saddle," said Lord Lonsdale, "is made for falling off. You see it throws the rider clear of a falling horse."

This really explained the English saddle in terms of sport, which any fellow ought to understand. So I tried the saddle again, and found that one could ride straight leg at any gait quite easily by merely dispensing with the stirrups. It was almost as good as bareback. But with the leathers shortened, riding bent-leg, one could actually use the stirrups. Since then I have put my stock saddles away, and taken recruit lessons in the riding school. A little powdered resin on the leather straps of one's breeches makes them look quite smart and deceives the Instructor in Equitation. Still, I am a novice, trying in vain to rise at the trot with that poke forward of the head which so beautifully imitates the movement of a hen as she enquires for worms.

It is only by practical testing that I learned the qualities of the English saddle, and so brought it into comparison with that of the stock range. It is not easy to free one's mind from bias, to realise that perfectly sane men {213} have reasonable methods other than one's own, and that the mere fact that one's critic is an obnoxious bounder does not dispose of all his arguments. I venture to claim that the range horseman has intelligence equal to that which guides British horsemanship, and added to that the deeper intimacy of one who allows no hired hand to touch his horses, who cares for them as a hireling never can, and whose life depends upon his competence. It is from the range point of view that I venture now into the field of criticism.

To teach a novice to ride with the stock saddle I lead him on to talk about his girl. By the time he forgets that he is exaggerating on horseback he rides quite decently.

To teach a novice to ride with the English saddle is a matter of long and severe training. In the end he rides in spite of a saddle, which is by no means an aid to horsemanship.

The difference between straight leg and bent leg riding is not of the slightest consequence to the horse. To ride the stock saddle with comfort the leg must be straight. To ride the English saddle safely the leg must be bent. The total difference then is one between two saddles, the English model being excellent for sport, but otherwise quite useless; while the {214} stock saddle, which cannot possibly be used for flat racing or jumping, is of value to a man earning a living on horseback.

II. THE INDOOR HORSE.

HIS HOUSE. Because we love horses we have been seeking guidance from nature as to their management. "Nature" is only a sort of nickname for God, who bids us love our horse neighbours as all other neighbours. If our religion is not a sham it consists of love, and these our neighbours need a love which must be filled with live intelligence.

I doubt if God believes in the church I belong to, but I am sure He approves of our poor attempts to do our loving duty as horsemasters, as soldiers, or in any trade to which we have been called. This is the spirit in which I dare to adventure upon criticism, approaching civilized horsemastership from the singular point of view of the range horseman.

I do not presume to criticise the management of thoroughbreds, but wish to speak merely for common horses with whom I may claim friendship.

In buying a range-bred horse one takes the legs and feet almost for granted, but in civilization one deals with doubt and misgiving because the animal for sale is presumably a {215} wrong'un. The one thing that amazes the range man is the astounding number of ailments contracted by civilized horses on only four legs in a limited span of years. It is a strong presumption that there must be something in civilized horsemastership to account for the general unsoundness of the stock, the lack of endurance, the total failure in mobility.

The vital needs without which a horse will perish are water and grass. It is considered that the water flowing from limestone rocks, which carries carbonate of lime, is best for building bone. It seems quite possible that other mineral bearing waters have their usefulness in supplying elements needed for blood, muscle, or nerves.

The natural food of a horse is sun-cured tuft grass growing in arid regions, but a perfect imitation is the usual mixed feed of oats, chaff and bran, with the common equivalents used for varying diet. Next in value is the upland pasture of damp climates, worst is the meadow grass. The conditioning of horses in any green pasturage depends upon grain, but one should not in any feeding neglect rock salt.

If sunshine and fresh air were vital needs pit ponies would not live. Sun and air are no more necessities to a grown horse than eyesight is to {216} a man. So one needs to examine carefully and to reason closely as to the actual value even of air and sunshine.

The range is dry, parched, and above all things hard; and from the hardest ground come the breeds of especial value by reason of sound limbs and steel-like hoofs. The hardness of ground is due to the fierce light and heat of desert climates.

Again it is known that sunlight kills the germs of nearly all diseases, provided the air can reach them.

Unless they are robbed of their coats horses are almost indifferent to the greatest known extremes of dry heat and dry cold; yet, if exposed to wind they lose weight rapidly, and are intensely susceptible to draughts. The horse's natural shelter is a wind break.

To meet all these conditions the stable in rainy climates must have a roof to keep the standings dry, and yet should be roofed with glass to let in sufficient light to kill all germs of disease.

Yet any stable, warmed by the heat of horses, however carefully cleaned, is fouled by their dung and water, and so becomes a forcing house to breed disease unless one removes the walls. There should be no walls, but the {217} stable should be built like a Japanese house with transparent and portable screens, close fitting against draughts; which can be set up on two windward sides with every shift of the weather. By no other means can the diseases be swept away which make the stabled horse a byword for unsoundness.

If regions of hardest ground produce the best legs and hoofs, it does not follow that stables ought to be paved. Natural ground however hard is springy, but pavement is dead hard and slippery at that. The English horseman explains "It haint the 'unting as 'urts the 'orses 'oofs, but the 'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer, on the 'ard 'igh road." All who have seen the strains and tensions of cowpunching and noted the perfect soundness of cow ponies will agree that it haint the 'unting. But anybody who watches English horsemen with pleasure horses has noted the exceeding care with which they are ridden on the dirt rather than on the crown of a road, on the grass by the road rather than on the highways, and on any open route across country, rather than on the roadside. They get very much less hard going than the average range horse. The draught horse may suffer from the highway, but certainly not the hunter who is equally unsound. {218} Yet both have standings as a rule on a paved floor for not less than eighteen hours out of the average twenty-four.

A notable difference between the sound outdoor horse and the unsound indoor horse is in this matter of standing, for the range animal visits but does not live in a stable, while the unsound animal spends three fourths of his time on a hard pavement. I have noticed also in travel that when I brought weary horses to a stable with a wooden floor their pasterns always swelled over night. On a metalled or paved floor the swelling was almost as bad as on wood, whereas on earthern standings there was never the slightest trace of inflammation.

In recent handling of some sixty army horses I took them from pasture to horse lines without noting much unsoundness on either ground. Unsoundness developed when I took them to paved stalls, but was much diminished when I moved them to earth-floored sheds. I find too that notable horsemasters have removed the pavements from their stables in favour of clean, dry, well-drained earth standings; or, failing that, lay bedding a foot deep.

But my experiment has gone further. My horses have not only earth standings, but sheds so built that they are walled only to {219} windward. The gain in general health is beyond all question. Both in theory and in practice I have reason to believe that earth-floored sheds walled to windward only will cure the chronic unsoundness of stabled horses, provided that the strongest light possible is brought to bear for the killing out of disease germs. On the same principle which imports cats to look after our rats and mice, one might introduce some benevolent microbe whose duty it would be to eat disease germs in a stable floor.

III. THE INDOOR HORSE.

HIS WORK. So far analysis has shown two types of equipment: the weight-distributing saddle for war work, ridden straight-leg by soldiers, stockmen and others earning a living; and the light slippery saddle for running and jumping adapted to the bent-leg riding of pleasure horses for sport.

The saddle is but one of several factors in horsemanship, so we must isolate these factors one by one before we can reach conclusions from our study.

For the purpose of isolating the several factors in horsemanship, The Legion of Frontiersmen managed to organize a series of tests on English highways. In each test two groups {220} of three or four horsemen apiece, working in rivalry, rode fifty to fifty-five miles on a Saturday, then back again on the Sunday. Afterwards a veterinary surgeon reported on the condition of the horses.

The first test was made under conditions of unusual heat, and after one serious case of heat prostration the homeward run had to be made at night. The riders were veterans to the age of seventy-two, with an average of two old wounds, and more than two war decorations per man. Our cab and 'bus horses finished like the riders, in good time and condition, but did not equal the usual gait of the annual Stock Exchange competition of men afoot on the same London and Brighton road.

SADDLES. We never had the rival types of saddles tested by teams, but each man rode his own, and for short marches like ours the difference was slight. The men with stock saddles were less weary, and their horses fresher, but not to any notable degree.

SEAT. In one test a competitor failed us, and was replaced by a sailor who had not ridden before. At first he butted his horse backwards into shops, so we had to change about for ten miles until we found the best mount for his peculiar needs. After that there {221} remained one hundred miles, and his horse got the best report. A sailor has balance, and given that mere form is not important.

TYPE OF HORSE. We hired 'bus and cab horses because they were cheap; but in one of the competitions were opposed by a group of horsemen riding their private hunters. Our working horses finished fresh and on time, but the pleasure horses broke down and had to come home by train.

I might enter into the details of a dozen other exercises which tested the indoor horse and the English equipment, but all may be summed up in a single broad generalization. The pleasure horse and his equipment are so highly specialized for running and jumping that they have ceased to possess the slightest value for civil and military working horsemanship.

{222}