THE BARB AND THE BRIDLE. 15- 



proceed to say something about that very important consideration,, 

 the matter of the riding master. 



In the first place, then, it is necessary that the professor of equita- 

 tion should be one who has been regularly brought up to his busi- 

 ness. If such a man is not within reach, then I submit that it is 

 better to entrust the riding education of the young lady to any staid 

 middle-aged gentleman who is a thoroughly good horseman, and 

 who will undertake the task con amove. If the gentleman has 

 daughters of his own, all the better. I do not recommend young 

 men for the office, because, naturally enough, they are more likely 

 to be engrossed with the charms of their pupils than the progress 

 they are making with their riding. Youthful preceptors, too, have 

 a tendency to " make the pace a trifle too good," and there are not 

 even wanting instances where they have " bolted " with their pupils 

 altogether. This by the way. 



To return to the professional riding master. I may add that, in 

 addition to thoroughly understanding his craft, he should be a man 

 of education and a gentleman. Of such men there are several in 

 the metropolis ; in the provinces they are few and far between. In 

 most of our fashionable watering-places one sees very neatly got-up 

 horsey-looking men, duly booted, spurred, and moustached, tittuping 

 along with a small troop of young ladies, who, with their skirts 

 ballooned out with the fresh breeze from the " briny," and " sitting 

 all over the saddle," are making themselves very uncomfortable, 

 when they could have enjoyed the bracing air just as well, for less 

 money, in an open fly. The riding master, in all probability, has 

 promoted himself from the office of pad groom. He knows how to 

 saddle and turn out a lady's horse, and how to put the lady into the 

 saddle ; he knows, also, the cheapest market in which to go for 

 fashionable-looking screws upon whiqh to mount his customers. 

 There his qualifications as a riding master end. The inductive 

 steps by which a lady should be taught, the reason for everything 

 she is asked to do, the "aids" by which she should control her 

 horse and establish a good understanding with him, are all sealed 

 mysteries to the stamp of man I speak of. From such men and their 

 ten-pound screws there is nothing to be learnt in the way of riding. 



