RIDING AND DRIVING 



RIDLEY 



715 



action be constantly employed to 'stick on' the 

 muscles then brought into play will soon become 

 tired, and will be unable to act at the very moment 

 their aid is most required. One valuable rale in 

 riding is that, except when applying the leg to the 

 animal's side, the leg from Hie knee down should 

 remain unaltered in its i>osition, so that neither 

 knee nor foot will work backwards or forwards. 

 The movements of the upper part of the body 

 should be regulated by the play of the hips. There 

 should l>e no hollowing out of the small of the back 

 or pushing out of the chest, or any other action 

 which would give rigidity to the muscles. The 

 ^;reat reason why any approach to stiffness, when 

 riiling, should be avoided is that it has to be main- 

 tained by muscular effort and is consequently fol- 

 lowed by fatigue. As soon as the muscles become 

 tired they are weak and slow to act. Conse- 

 quently, if they l>e kept stiff (or, more correctly 

 speaking, in a contracted condition) they will be 

 unable to do any work they may be called upon to 

 perform in as effective a manner as they would do 

 were they kept lissom. Hence a person should 

 ride, as a rule, by balance and not i>y grip, until 

 the moment comes to put forth the required mus- 

 cular effort. The rider should endeavour to avoid 

 the two very common faults of holding on by the 

 reins and of putting too much weight on the 

 stirrups, and he should try to ride with his seat 

 well under him and not stuck out behind. If he 

 find that he is insecure in his saddle he should 

 allow no false shame to prevent him from getting 

 one in which he will have a lirmer hold. To give 

 this additional grip the saddle may be covered 

 with buckskin, or with leather the rough side of 

 which is put on the outside. The saddle should be 

 roomy. The back part, upon which the seat rests, 

 should be fairly flat ; the seat ought to have a good 

 'dip' in it; and there should be tolerably large 

 rolls ' on the flaps. To become a good rider one 

 will require plenty of practice, and a frequent 

 change of horse and saddle. The English style of 

 riding, which has been adopted with marked success 

 in the hunting-field, racecourse, steeplechase-course, 

 and polo-ground, is treated clearly and system- 

 atically in Captain Hayes's Riding ( fhacker & Co., 

 3d ed. Lond. 1891 ). There is also much valuable 

 advice given in that excellent work, Colonel Green- 

 wood's Hints on Horsemanship (Moxon & Co., 

 London). In the Badminton Library book on 

 Riding (Longmans, Green, & Co.) this subject is 

 treated from the old-fashioned riding-school point 

 of view, at which we shall presently glance. 



In school riding the object of getting the horse 

 to carry his rider with the greatest possible ease to 

 himself, which is the chief aim of the ordinary 

 rider, is sacrificed to a large extent for increased 

 control, so as to get the horse to perform the various 

 airs de manege with precision. The English mili- 

 tary riding system is a kind of compromise be- 

 tween that of the continental haute (cole and the 

 English hunting style. Although great improve- 

 ments have been made in high school riding in 

 France and Germany, the riding instruction con- 

 tained in The Cavalry Regulations has remained 

 practically unaltered ' for the past thirty years. 

 M. Baucher, we may remark, was the great master of 

 school equitation of the previous generation. His 

 system has been much modified for the better by 

 Captain Raal>e and M. Fillis, although these 

 masters differ in some details from eacli other. 

 M. Ban-oil's Art fiqnestre ( Rothschild, Paris) is 

 moulded on the teaching of Raabe. Prmrims de 

 Dressage and d'Equitation (Marpon and Flam- 

 marion, Paris), by M. Fillis, contains all his views. 

 Both are most valuable works on I'ecmitation 

 tnnmte, and should be carefully studied by the 

 student. Previous to their appearance Mr E. L. 



Anderson wrote Modern Horsemanship on the same 

 subject ; but it is neither so elaborate nor so in- 

 structive as either of the other two, which ought 

 to be read conjointly. Of the two we prefer that 

 of M. Fillis, especially as he teaches that the horse 

 should carry his head in a freer and less fatiguing 

 style than that advised by M. Barroil, who in this 

 respect follows the instruction of Baucher. In 

 M. Fillis's book there are some valuable commen- 

 taires stir Baucher. 



Although exhibitions of school riding are cften 

 given in a circus, we must separate it from circus 

 riding, which, properly speaking, is limited to 

 performances (standing, leaping, dancing, and 

 tumbling) in an upright position, either on a pad 

 or on the bare back of a horse. The only part 

 which we could term riding, in the usual sense of 

 the term, is the 'bounding jockey act,' in which 

 the 'artist,' while riding round the ring, takes off 

 his saddle, stands pn it, gets off his norse, and 

 jumps astride on him and on top of his back while 

 the animal is galloping round. 



In side-saddle riding the lady depends for security 

 of seat on balance and on the grip she has on the 

 upper and lower crutches. Her right leg is placed 

 over the former, and she presses her left leg, a little 

 above the knee, against the latter when she seeks 

 their aid. Her left foot should not be placed 

 ' home ' in the stirrup, but only as far as the ball of 

 the foot ; and the heel should be slightly depressed. 

 If, when her left leg is held in this manner, she can 

 just feel the pressure of the lower crutch, the length 

 of her stirrup will be about right. The only pace 

 at which she should put weight on the stirrup is 

 the trot. The great requisite for obtaining a 

 ' square ' seat, which is the one correct position for 

 a lady on horseback, is for the rider to put her 

 weight on her right leg, and not equally on both, 

 as is often wrongly advised, and to bring the left 

 shoulder up as much as the right. The body should 

 be free from all stiffness, and should be kept erect 

 by the play of the hip-joints, and not by hollowing 

 out the small of the back and pushing out the 

 chest. She should try to get her seat well under 

 her. We would strongly advise the use of the 

 'Scott stirrup,' which will always release the foot 

 in the event of a fall. The best book on ladies' 

 riding is The Horsewoman ( Thacker & Co. , London ), 

 by Captain and Mrs Hayes. French ideas on ladies' 

 riding are expounded in L'Amazone (Rothschild, 

 Paris), by M. Musany. 



The art of driving is studied in Great Britain 

 chiefly with the view of having the horses in perfect 

 control, which is necessitated by the hilly nature 

 of the country and by the crowded condition of the 

 thoroughfares in the cities and towns. In America 

 and Australia there are better opportunities for fast 

 driving. Hence in England a showy style of trot- 

 ting is sought for, while speed is more thought 

 of in the United States and in the Antipodes. 

 Although strenuous efforts are being made to 

 establish trotting as a sport in Britain, and trot- 

 ting meetings are often held at the Alexandra 

 Parli, Liverpool, and elsewhere, we greatly doubt 

 whether it will obtain any permanent footing. 



The best books on driving are Driviin.1 ( Badminton 

 Library) ; Ridinti and Driving, by J. H. Walsh ; Coach- 

 inrj, by Lord W. P. I.ennox ; Down the Road, by C. T. 

 Biroh-Reynardson ; American Trotten,\>y Hiram Wood- 

 ruff; and Among the Trotters, by John Spl.-ui. See also 

 the articles BRIDLE, COACHING, FOXHUNTING, HOESE- 

 BACING, and TBOTTINO. 



Ridley, NICHOLAS, Protestant martyr, was 

 born alxmt 1500, of good Northumbrian stock. 

 From the grammar-school of Newcastle-upon-Tyne 

 he passed to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, became 

 fellow in 1524, and master in 1540. The spirit of 

 the Reformation had already begun to penetrate 



