Sitting a Jog-Trot loi 



Sit erect, but avoid rigidity. It is good prac- 

 tice to sit close, that is, without rising, on a slow 

 jog-trot. Let us try. Sit perfectly straight and 

 take the bumping. On a jog-trot, it is an unpar- 

 donable sin to lean forward at all. You will find 

 that shortly it does not bump you so much, and 

 by and by it will not at all. But don't lean back 

 either. That is the country bumpkin's preroga- 

 tive. Nelly is evidently easy enough, only she 

 has not been taught to curb her ambition. Noth- 

 ing shakes a man into the saddle better than this 

 same jog-trot. Nothing is more absurd than the 

 attempt to rise when the horse is only jogging, 

 or, as it were, the attempt to make your horse be- 

 gin to trot by beginning to rise. It looks like an 

 attempt to lift yourself up by your boot straps. 

 Teach him some other indication to start a trot. 

 It is useless to rise unless a horse is going at 

 least a six-mile gait. 



Some School-riders taboo the jog, but all the 

 cavalry of the world use it ; it is the homeward 

 gait of the tired hunter, and it does teach a man 

 a good, easy, safe seat. It is true that a horse 

 who won't walk at speed, but who falls from a 

 slow walk into a jog whenever you urge him, is 

 a nuisance. Moreover, the uneducated jog is 

 neither a fashionable nor a desirable gait. But 

 a schooled jog, which the horse does under your 

 direction and control, is quite another thing, 



