88 Cross Country with Horse and Hound 



Riding-school masters — who in America are mostly 

 Englishmen — teach the grip method, and it is owing to 

 them that people are falling into English ways of riding in 

 America, — especially in cities, — which is much to be 

 deplored. Grip, however slight, robs the figure of that 

 suppleness and elasticity of motion and grace of carriage 

 that are characteristic of riding by balance. I regret to say 

 that no one up to the present time has, to my knowledge, 

 come forward outright to champion riding by balance. 

 The tradition of riding by grip has probably been handed 

 down to Englishmen from earliest history, and is only 

 another of many customs that hang on long after they 

 ought to be discarded. 



If there is any one thing about riding horseback that I 

 feel more positive about than another, it is that riding by 

 balance is the only correct way, the safest, the most secure, 

 and the most graceful way to sit a horse. This will shock 

 many of my English and not a few of my American 

 riding-school friends who look upon themselves as good 

 riders. But so far as sticking on a horse is concerned, 

 their ability is lessened, as I shall attempt to show, by the 

 very means which they believe gives them security. 



First let me call attention to the fact that there resides 

 in every man a certain power or instinctive ability operat- 

 ing under what is sometimes called the first law of nature, 

 or the law of self-preservation. It acts usually indepen- 

 dently of the mind, and its processes are much keener and 

 quicker than merely mental processes. When a man rises 

 to walk, for instance, the act of rising is done with a more 

 or less conscious mental effort. Once on his feet, he 



