38 HACKS AND HUNTERS 



broken, according to our idea, would to men like 

 Vivian Gooch, of England, or Colonel Feline, of France, 

 seem merely a green one. Comparisons may be in- 

 vidious, but they are often interesting as well as in- 

 structive, and surely may be pardoned if they point 

 a moral. For example, I have, when in England, 

 ridden horses schooled by Mr. Gooch, which I consid- 

 ered so well broken that I marvelled at them, and yet 

 which he smilingly referred to as not yet being half 

 finished and requiring many more months of tuition 

 before being ready to show. Then, again, when I 

 first went over to ride at Olympia for the late Mr. 

 Walter Winans, I telephoned Mr. Gooch, who was 

 training his horses, informing him of my arrival, and 

 asking when I might go out to Windsor to try the 

 horses prior to the show. I was told, much to my 

 surprise, that this was quite unnecessary, and that all 

 I need do was to appear at Olympia fifteen minutes 

 before my class was to be called. In other words, the 

 horses I was expected to ride were so perfectly broken 

 that they needed no preliminary schooling, and when I 

 arrived at Olympia I found that my horse, "Turquoise" 

 (see illustration facing page 32), went as superbly as if I 

 had ridden him all my life. He was so perfectly broken 

 that all he needed in order to do his best was merely 

 to have his rider on his back! He walked, trotted, 

 cantered, held his head in its proper place, changed 

 leads at a touch, and even did the Spanish Walk out 

 of the ring when he won his blue. Whereas, over here, 

 when I am asked to show a so-called show horse, I 

 am obliged to give it hours of work prior to the show, 

 endeavoring to teach it the rudiments of changing 

 leads or some other simple little thing, which to a 

 really broken horse should be second nature. Such 



