SHOWING SADDLE HORSES 169 



posed to be a good-looking horse of saddle type, a sur- 

 vival of the horse used in the days before the motor, 

 to carry one swiftly, easily, and gently to the meet, 

 at a delightful ten-mile-an-hour canter — the sole gait 

 at which he ever travelled. He was, moreover, sup- 

 posed to be able to jump anything up to about three 

 feet six inches in height, so that, at a pinch, one could 

 take short cuts to the meet. However, I presume it is 

 quite natural that over here neither road nor park 

 hacks are supposed to canter much, since our roads 

 are hard and our park bridle paths harder still. Al- 

 though, if I had my choice, I would reverse the order 

 of things, and insist that the park, and not the road 

 hack had the fast trot, I can quite readily understand 

 that until our roads are improved little attention will 

 be paid to the canter. 



In classes for the best-trained saddle horse ability 

 to change leads quickly and neatly, to stand absolutely 

 still when being mounted, etc., is necessary. Any 

 little high school trick such as ability to " passage" 

 or "traverse" will, of course, count in the horse's favor. 



In appointment classes care must be taken that 

 both horse and rider are turned out correctly to the 

 most minor detail — tabulated lists of which are given 

 under the chapter on dress. 



The preparation of a show horse should always 

 begin long before the entries close, as in most cases 

 that date is set only a week or two prior to the event. 



In getting a saddle horse ready, assuming that he 

 is broken at least in a rudimentary sense, he should 

 be given only a short daily work-out, but a "snappy" 

 one. Hunters may be given long slow work, but in 

 saddle-horse "preping" the animal should only be 

 trotted so long as he is brilliant at that gait, and never 



