Ca.\ terixg — Gai LcrixG — Leaping. 343 



The same experienced instructor recommends that pupils should (in a school) trot without 

 reins, " the hands behind the waist, the right hand grasping the left elbow." This was George 

 Darby's system of teaching before he gave up the riding-school to his brothers for the Rugby 

 dealing establishment. 



CANTERING. 



The canter is essentially the ladies' pace ; and on a good horse it is so easy to balance 

 that it deceives many pupils into believing they are adepts when they have only learnt the 

 A B C of the art. In the canter the lady's whip, if needful, urges the horse as a man's right 

 leg and spur would. The instructions for cantering are the same for a lady as those given 

 for a man. A horse must not be permitted to break from a trot to a canter, but reined up 

 and made to begin again. 



Some horses trained to lead with either leg go as pleasantly with the one as the other. 

 This capability of changing saves a horse very much. When a lady rides on the off side, she 

 requires her horse to lead with the near leg. 



GALLOPING. 



To gallop, a lady must invariably take her reins in both hands, feeling the horse's mouth 

 firmly with the snaffle and lightly with the curb. A writer, already quoted, who holds to the 

 theory of a woman riding with one hand, like a cavalry soldier (which was exactly the reverse 

 of Dan Sefifert's early lessons), permits division of the reins between both hands when galloping, 

 and directs that the lady " places her right hand outside her right knee, and her left hand 

 outside the near side upper crutch, the hands not more than six or eight inches from the body, 

 the knuckles upwards, elbows slightly bent," the hands, firmly holding the reins, resting against 

 the saddle. 



When she desires to decrease her speed she leans back gradually, draws her hands towards 

 her waist, and with her fingers brings the curb reins into action, thus reducing the gallop to 

 a canter, and the canter to a walk. 



But for a gallop the pupil must have been prepared by long preliminary walks, trots, and 

 canters, and be in the healthy condition of a gymnast in full practice. No woman is a horse- 

 woman, or fit to be trusted without a leading-rein, until she can gallop and stop her horse. 



LEAPING. 



Every lady who learns to ride should learn to sit a leap ; not only on the principle that 

 if a thing is worth doing at all it is worth doing well, but because no lady who rides can ever 

 be sure that on some occasion her horse — stung by a fly or excited by a thunderstorm — will 

 not make a series of bounds quite equal to any probable leap in the hunting-field. 



Of course, if a lady has made up her mind that she will never leave the promenades of 

 fashionable resort, that is a different thing ; on the same principle she may decline to receive 

 any lessons except walking and slow cantering, because she has made up her mind never to 

 go beyond those paces. But to make quite sure, she must be certain no horse she may mount 

 will ever insist on a fierce trot or a wild gallop. 



When a lady has attained the whole art of equestrianism she is prepared for every kind 



