Use 01'' Stirrups. 277 



riding on horseback." " Not," was the reply, " when they ride very badly, and turn out their 

 toes." For Sydney Smith took the haute ccole view of horsemanship. 



The old hatite dcole plan of giving a seat and carriage of the body in the earlier lessons 

 was very good ; at any rate, it was a plan on which such horsemen as Mr. D. Seffert and Mr. 

 George Rice took their first lessons. The pupil was mounted on a school-horse, on a buck- 

 skin-covered not a slippery saddle, with well-stuffed bolsters before his knees, but without 

 stirrups, a snaffle rein in each hand, and his elbows kept back by a stick thrust through them 

 behind his back, like a trussed chicken. 



This plan may have a tendency to make the action of the arms rather stiff, if persevered 

 in too long, but it will certainly stamp in the habit of keeping the hands down and the elbows 

 close. Habits, especially in the young, are wonderfully tenacious, whether they are good or 

 bad. This may be seen in discharged soldiers, who for years after leaving the army show 

 an inclination to salute an officer, and always walk not as civilian mechanics walk. 



It is a question worth experiment whether an elastic band or ring of india-rubber — a 

 Ranelagh, in fact — would not be a more satisfactory instrument for confining the elbows than the 

 trussing-stick. 



On the question of commencing riding with or without stirrups, different opinions are held. 

 I am inclined to believe that it is better to begin with stirrups, because " the pupil first acquires 

 one seat without stirrups, and then another, which he is to use permanently, with stirrups ;" so 

 that it is plainly more in accordance with common sense to begin as you mean to go on. 

 " The most difficult thing to acquire is balance ; stirrups were invented to assist in maintaining 

 balance. To add stirrups to a saddle after the pupil has acquired balance, is like giving a boy 

 an air-collar after he has commenced to swim." If it is decided to dispense with stirrups, then, 

 as already observed, not a hard, smooth saddle, but a soft pad without pommel or cantle should 

 be employed. 



My friend the late Captain Percy Williams, who served in the 9th Lancers before he became 

 famous as a master of hounds, was considered one of the best men of his day as a gentle- 

 man jockey and a rider to hounds. When quartered at Hounslow, in his frequent visits to 

 London, Major Whyte Melville states that it was his practice as soon as he left or before he 

 came to the stones, to throw the stirrups over the pommel, and ride his fast-trotting hack by 

 grip and balance alone — to this practice he attributed his marvellous seat, and Percy Williams 

 was a first-class horseman. 



The one instance in which I should be inclined to dispense with stirrups is when a young 

 boy or girl witli a very clever miniature pony is in the habit of following the hounds ; because 

 their being dragged by the stirrups may be more dangerous than any fall. I have known 

 one instance of a fatal accident from a boy's foot being hung in the stirrup after a fall at 

 a leap. Boys' stirrups are usually too small ; they should be in the modern form of ladies' 

 stirrups. 



After a certain amount of skill has been attained in grip, the stirrups may be taken away 

 in a school lesson, to perfect the balance and grip. 



The length of the stirrup-leathers should be regulated by the length of the legs and 

 thighs, when they are hanging in a proper position. There is no fixed rule by which this 

 length may be calculated within an inch, because it will vary with the shape of the man's 

 limbs and the horse's barrel. On changing the saddle to a diff"erent horse, it constantly 

 happens that you find it necessary, in consequence of one girthing several inches more or less 

 than the other, to take up or let down a hole. The rough-and-ready measure is by the length of 



