Patroclus and Penelope: a Chat in the Saddle

Part 1

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By the same Author.

THE CAMPAIGN OF CHANCELLORSVILLE.

It is not easy to say which part of this book is best, for it is all good.--The Nation.

We do not hesitate to pronounce it one of the ablest, fairest, and most valuable books that we have seen.--Southern Historical Papers.

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF OUR CIVIL WAR

Is all that could be desired: gives perhaps a clearer, more vivid view, a more accurate outline than any other available record.--London Saturday Review.

The material of the work well serves to consolidate and orient the knowledge of what was done in the Great Rebellion and of those who did it.--Journal Military Service Institution.

We do not hesitate to commend the book most warmly as the work of an able, painstaking soldier, who has honestly endeavored to ascertain and frankly to tell the truth about the war.--Southern Historical Papers.

The book is written in a spirit of impartiality and of just discrimination concerning the merits and defects of the generals who led the armies of the North and South.--Army and Navy Journal.

PATROCLUS AND PENELOPE

A Chat in the Saddle

THEODORE AYRAULT DODGE

BREVET LIEUTENANT-COLONEL UNITED STATES ARMY, RETIRED LIST; AUTHOR OF "THE CAMPAIGN OF CHANCELLORSVILLE," "A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF OUR CIVIL WAR," ETC., ETC.

BOSTON HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1885

Copyright, 1885, BY THEODORE AYRAULT DODGE.

All rights reserved.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge: Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton and Company.

THE COUNTRY CLUB OF BOSTON,

WHICH HAS FOSTERED A TRUE APPRECIATION OF GOOD HORSEMANSHIP IN OUR CITY OF BEAUTIFUL ENVIRONMENTS, AND WHOSE GENEROUS AND ABLE ADMINISTRATION HAS AFFORDED THE LOVERS OF THE SADDLE SO MANY OCCASIONS OF RARE ENTERTAINMENT,

These Pages are Inscribed

A MEMBER.

Since--as it has been our fortune to be long engaged about horses--we consider that we have acquired some knowledge of horsemanship, we desire also to intimate to the younger part of our friends how we think that they may bestow their attention on horses to the best advantage.

XENOPHON on Horsemanship, I. I.

Transcriber's Note: The Table of Contents have been moved from the back of the book to the front.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

I. Patroclus and I 19

Part 2

II. Saddles and Seats 22

III. Patroclus on a Rack 28

IV. The Rack and Single-Foot 29

V. Patroclus Trotting 32

VI. Thoroughbred or Half-Bred 33

VII. The Saddle Mania 35

VIII. Park-Riding 37

IX. A Fine Horse not necessarily a Good Hack 39

X. Soldiers have Stout Seats 41

XI. A Gate and a Brook 44

XII. The Old Trooper 48

XIII. Instruction in Riding 49

XIV. Chilly Fox-Hunting 51

XV. Is Soldier or Fox-Hunter the Better Rider? 55

XVI. The School-Rider 56

XVII. Patroclus happy 59

XVIII. Photography versus Art 61

XIX. A One-Man Horse 69

XX. Baucher's Favorite Saddle Horse 70

XXI. Patroclus sniffs a Friend 73

XXII. Riding-Schools and School-Riding 74

XXIII. Is Schooling of Value? 76

XXIV. Manuals of Training 82

XXV. Result of Training 83

XXVI. Qualities of the Horse 86

XXVII. Dress, Saddles, and Bridles 87

XXVIII. Mounting 89

XXIX. How to hold the Reins 92

Part 3

XXX. How to begin Training 94

XXXI. Penelope's Unrestrained Courage 97

XXXII. Hints before beginning to train a Horse 98

XXXIII. Guiding by the Neck 104

XXXIV. What an Arched Neck means 109

XXXV. Flexions of the Neck 113

XXXVI. Flexions of the Croup 116

XXXVII. The Canter 121

XXXVIII. Leading with either Shoulder 125

XXXIX. The Horse's Natural Lead 131

XL. The Best Way to teach the Lead 135

XLI. Change of Lead in Motion 138

XLII. Suggestions 141

XLIII. How to begin Jumping 143

XLIV. The Reins in the Jump 148

XLV. Odds and Ends of Leaping 152

XLVI. Hunting and Road-Riding 155

XLVII. Advantages of True Rack 157

XLVIII. Who is the Best Rider? 160

XLIX. Vale! 166

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

1. PATROCLUS Frontispiece.

2. A QUIET AMBLE 12

3. THE RACK OR RUNNING WALK 24

4. A SHARP SINGLE-FOOT 36

5. AN EASY CANTER 48

6. A TEN-MILE TROT 60

7. RISING TO A HURDLE 72

Part 4

8. FLYING A HURDLE 84

9. CLEAN ABOVE IT 96

10. TAKING OFF AT WATER 108

11. DOING IT HANDILY 120

12. A TWENTY-FOOT JUMP 132

13. ABOUT TO LAND 144

14. LANDING 156

BEFORE MOUNTING.

But a few months since, the author, whose thirty odd years in the saddle in many parts of the world have, he trusts, taught him that modesty which should always be bred of usage, was showing some of the instantaneous photographs of his horse Patroclus to a group of Club men. Most of the gentlemen were old friends, but one of the photographs having been passed to a by-stander, whose attire marked him as belonging to the most recently developed Boston type of horsemen, elicited, much to his listeners' entertainment, the remark that "naw man can wide in a saddle like that, ye know, not weally wide, ye know! naw fawm, ye know! wouldn't be tolewated in our school, ye know!" The author was informed by a mutual acquaintance that the gentleman was taking a course of lessons at the swellest riding academy of the city, and had recently imported an English gelding. In deference to such excellent authority, whose not unkindly meant, if somewhat brusquely uttered, criticism may be said to have inspired these pages, otherwise perhaps without a suitable motif, an explanation appears to be called for, lest by some other youthful equestrian critics the physician be advised to heal himself.

The exclusive use of the English hunting-rig and crop for all kinds and conditions of men at all times and in all places is well understood by old horsemen to be but a matter of fashion which time may displace in favor of some other novelty. For their proper purpose they are undeniably the best. But to the newly fledged equestrian who makes them his shibboleth, and who discards as "bad form" any variation upon the road from what is eminently in place after hounds, the author, with an admiration for the excellencies of the English seat derived from half a dozen years' residence in the Old Country and many a sharp run in the flying-counties, and with the consciousness that, if tried in the balance of to-day's Anglomania, his own seat, as shown in some of the illustrations, may chance to be found wanting, desires to explain that, during the Civil War, outrageous fortune, among other slings and arrows, sent him to the rear with the loss of a leg; but that far from giving up a habit thus become all the more essential because he could no longer safely sit a flat saddle, he concluded to supplement his lack of grip (as the Marquis of Anglesea for a similar reason had done before him) by the artificial support which is afforded in the rolls and pads of a somerset or demi-pique, as well as to adopt the seat best suited to his disability. And it was such a saddle, of a pattern perhaps too pronounced to suit even the author's eye, however comfortable and safe,--particularly so in leaping, which provoked the censure, perhaps quite justifiable according to the light of the critic, which has been quoted above. This variation, however, by no means conflicts with the author's belief in, and constant advocacy of, the flat English saddle in its place. But he has seen so many accomplished riders in quite different saddles, that he became long ago convinced that the English tree by no means affords the only perfect seat. In fact, the saddle best suited to universal use, that is, the one which might best serve a man under any conditions, approaches, in his opinion, more nearly the modified military saddle of to-day than the hunting type.

Nor because a local fashion, set but yesterday, prescribes strict adherence to a style he cannot follow, is the author less ready to venture upon giving a friendly word of advice to many of our young and aspiring riders. There are not a few gentlemen in Boston, whose months in the saddle number far less than the author's years, to whose courage and discretion as horsemen he yields his very honest admiration, and whose stanch hunters he is happy to follow across country, nor ashamed if he finds he has lost them from sight. He regrets to say that he has also seen not a few who affect to sneer at a padded saddle or a horse with a long tail, who seem incapable of throwing their heart across a thirty inch stone wall in a burst after hounds, although upon the road they seek to impress one as constantly riding to cover.

It is unnecessary, however, to say that the author has too long been a lover of equestrianism per se not to admire the good and be tolerant of the bad for the total sum of gain which the horseback mania of to-day affords. He is old enough to remember that human nature remains the same, however fast the world may move, and is firm in the belief that we shall soon grow to be a nation of excellent horsemen.

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