44 Among Men and Horses. 



tightly to the reins, he will, almost to a certainty, become 

 displaced in his seat by being pulled forward, the moment 

 the horse throws his head down. A well-timed buck will 

 then scarcely fail to catapult the rider into space. To ride a 

 buckjumper properly, one ought to try as far as practicable 

 to prevent him getting his head down ; but at the same time 

 one ought to be ready to let the reins slip through the fingers, 

 the moment one feels that one cannot resist the downward 

 pull of the animal's head. 



I think I may best define buckjumping as one or more 

 consecutive standing leaps by the more or less simultaneous 

 action of both fore and hind legs, executed by the horse in 

 the same direction or to either side, with a minimum amount 

 of forward progression, and with the greatest possible eleva- 

 tion of the hindquarters and depression of the head and 

 neck. The check given to forward movement may be so well 

 marked, that the leap, more or less sur place, may be con- 

 verted into a backward spring. The more forward movement 

 is given to the jumps, the more has the forehand to be raised, 

 and the easier will they be to sit. When the action has a 

 good deal of forward movement in it, it is usually called in 

 the Colonies pigjumping. If the horse, instead of landing on 

 both fore legs at the same time, alights on one and then on 

 the other, as in the ordinary leap, the pigjumping is con- 

 verted into the more familiar and still less discomposing act 

 of plunging. I may remark that the higher a horse bucks, 

 the less he goes forward ; and that the more he twists 

 himself round, the higher he cants up his quarters, the more 

 he depresses his head, and the more uniform is the respective 

 action of the fore and hind legs ; the more difficult will he be 

 to sit. It sometimes happens that a horse throws his hind- 

 quarters so high and puts his head so low down, that he * comes 

 right over/ with serious if not fatal effect to his helpless rider. 

 It is much easier to ride a buckjumper in a small enclosed 

 space, than in the open, where he would be able to get up a 

 great deal of forward impetus, which, on being suddenly 



