THE HIGH-SCHOOL AIRS 177 



you that it will take you five years to learn the rudi- 

 ments of horsemanship, when you want to ride with 

 the hounds, at least as far as the first wall where vou 

 and your steed part company, so soon as the next fixt- 

 ures are made ; and as a result you turn your back on his 

 manege and go to a more humdrum school. You want to 

 ride a la banjo and right you are ! 



At his best, however, this rider is in his. way more of 

 an artist than any other man who makes horsemanship 

 his profession. My former simile of playing the violin is 

 distinctly applicable to him. Some of the work he can do 

 is like Paganini's " Carnival of Yenice ;" some of it like, a 

 smooth adagio of Kiicken. The art to-day threatens to 

 be lost ; there are few masters left, but we have had some 

 American experts who have done great things. Fancy 

 bringing a horse to such a degree of confidence in your 

 power and his own that you can back him up to an obsta- 

 cle, however small, and make him jump it backward! 

 Yet this has been done, while the trot and gallop back- 

 ward have always been high -school airs. By trotting 

 and galloping backward I do not mean that a horse at- 

 tains any speed ; he merely takes the gait, i.e. uses his feet 

 in the true sequence of the gait, and progresses backward 

 at a very slow rate. Nor is it a gallop ; it is more prop- 

 erly a canter or a prance. The name " gallop backward " 

 was given when the mechanical action of the gallop was 

 not understood, and it still clings. 



The chief point of criticism of the school-rider is per- 

 haps that he is too little tolerant of the knowledge of 

 others. This is a common error in artists of every pro- 

 fession. " They were all wrong, those old chaps !" is still 

 the cry of the long-haired fraternity. I speak feelingly 

 because I have at times been imbued with the spirit as I 

 have enjoyed the delights of the high-school. But I have 



