SOUTHERN GAITS 16a 



showing entire familiarity with and control of his splen- 

 did mount, and his legs perhaps swinging to and fro with 

 the motion. The latter comes along on an equally well- 

 bred horse with longer leathers, upright in the saddle, one 

 hand with a single curb hghtly reining in his quickly 

 moving single-footer. Though the Arab is used to both 

 the shorter stirrups and the leaning seat, think you he 

 would hesitate on pronouncing the Southerner the more 

 graceful and experts It is not that the Englishman is 

 not a good pattern, but that for road-riding we have a 

 better one at home. Assertions such as these are wont 

 to provoke a sneer from the Anglonianiac ; but a sneer is 

 not argument ; it is the resort of ignorance. Answer 

 there is none, unless a man will in the same breath main- 

 tain that education is unfitted for a horse, as some assert 

 that it is lost on women. Despite our slight veneer of 

 Anglomania, however, we are sound American within, 

 and shall not long neglect what can be taught us by our 

 own countrymen, who have been in the saddle as many 

 generations as the English, and been compelled to a much 

 greater degree to use horses for daily work as well as 

 pleasure. One may see it coming now. The Kentucky 

 horse is by no means as often despoiled of his accomplish- 

 ments when he reaches a New York owner as he used to 

 be, and a better welcome is given him at the Horse-show. 

 But either the Southern gaits should be recognized as 

 suitable ones for a park hack in addition to the walk, trot, 

 and canter, or else a special class should be provided. It 

 is a mistake to overlook these gaits— the most universally 

 employed of any among all peoples which are adepts in 

 horsemanship. 



I have often seen in England a man who prided himself 

 on the speed of his park -hack's walk. He called it a 

 " walk " — so would a Southerner ; but it was a " running- 



