Page:EB1911 - Volume 23.djvu/336

Rh length of the stirrups will depend a good deal upon the shape an action of the horse, but the nature of the animal and the peculiarities of the country ridden over will also have something to do with their adjustment. A puller will compel the rider to shorten his leathers one or perhaps two holes-a course that may also be rendered necessary in a hilly country, for, in going down hill, the stirrups, if kept at the ordinary length, will generally feel a great deal too long. The rider’s body must be always close to the saddle in leaping, fir if he were jerked up, the weight of say only a 10-stone man coming down on the horse a couple of seconds after he has negotiated a large fence is sufficient to throw the animal down. Nothing but actual practice with hounds can teach a man how to ride where all kinds of going and obstacles of various sorts, natural and artificial, have to be encountered in a day’s hunting. For example, the country gone over is seldom level springy turf; it is up hill and down dale, across ridge and furrow, over ground studded with ant-hills (which, unlike mole-hills, are often very hard), over ploughed or boggy land. Each of these varieties requires a different method of riding over, and nearly every horse will require different handling under similar circumstances. It will therefore be seen that much depends on the rider having good hands. This qualification, though generally understood, is difficult to define. A rider with good hands never depends upon his reins for retaining his seat; nor does he pull at the horse’s mouth so as to make him afraid to go up to his bit; nor again does he ever use more force than is necessary for the accomplishment of what he desires to perform. But besides all this, there is an unaccountable sympathetic something about the man with good hands that cannot be described. Pullers appear to renounce pulling, refusers take to jumping and clumsy horses become nearly as handy as a trick horse in a circus; Though hands can to a great extent be acquired by care and practice, yet in the highest form this is a gift and cannot be learned. There are different kinds of “ fences, ” as all obstacles are generically called. First, there is timber, such as gates, stiles and rails; the first two are, nine times out of ten, awkward jumps, as the take off is either poached by cattle, or else is on the ascent or descent. Hedges vary according to the custom of the country in which they are found: they either grow in the soil of the field, and are protected by a ditch on one side, or are planted on a bank with a ditch on one side or sometimes on both. Then again there are such large banks as are found in Wales, Devon and Cornwall. Lastly come water jumps, which are met with in two forms: the water is either within an inch or two of the top of the bank, so as to be about on a level with the field through which it flows, or there may be a space of some 6 or 7 ft. from the bank to the water. For the successful negotiation of brooks a bold horse is required, ridden by a bold man. No fence that is ever encountered stops such a large proportion of the field as water; even a clear 6 ft. of it will prove a hindrance to some, while anything over IO or 12 ft. will in general be crossed only by a very few. Some horses, good performers over any description of fence, will not jump water under any circumstances; While the chance of a ducking deters many from riding at it; and, however bold the horse may be, he will soon refuse water if his rider be perpetually in two minds when approaching it.

The pace at which a hunter should be ridden at his fences depends upon the nature of the fence, and the peculiarities of each individual horse. With some very good jumpers-they can hardly be called good hunters-to steady them is to bid for a fall, while with some very clever hunters to hurry them is to bring them to grief. With ordinary horses, however, it is a good general rule to ride at fences of all descriptions as slowly as the nature of the obstacle admits. In grass countries, where “ fiying fences ” are found, the rate of speed must of necessity be quicker than when about to take a Devonshire bank of some 7 ft. high, but even at a flying fence the rider should steady his horse so as to contract the length of his stride, in order that he may measure the distance for taking off with greater accuracy. Flying fences consist of a hedge with or without a post and rail, and with or without a ditch on one or both sides; consequently a horse has to jump both high and wide to clear them. But in jumping a gate, or a flight of rails, as ordinarily situated, there is no width to be covered, and to make a horse go through the exertion of jumping both high and wide when he need only do one is to waste his power, added to which to ride fast at timber, unless very low with a ditch on the landing side, is highly dangerous.

All hedges on banks, banks and doubles must be ridden at slowly; they are usually of such a size as to 'make flying them impossible, or at least undesirable. Horses jump them on and off, and in taking them at a moderate pace there is a chance of stopping on the top and choosing a better place to jump from, or, if- needs be, of returning and taking the fence at another place. Cramped places will have to be jumped from a walk or even at a stand; for instance, a tree may be in a line with and close to the only practicable place in a fence; it then becomes necessary to go round the tree before a run at the place can be managed. So, too, with places that have to be crawled over between trees, or with dykes to be crawled down.

In jumping an ordinary hedge or ditch at moderate speed, there is of course a moment of time during which the horse is on his hind legs, and in theory the rider should then lean forward, but, in practice, this position is so momentary, and the lash out of the hind legs in the spring is so powerful, that it is best not to lean forward at all, because of the difficulty, if not impossibility, of getting back in time for the reverse movement, when the rider should be preparing to render the horse some assistance with the bridle as his feet touch the ground.

When a line of willows indicates the whereabouts of a brook, the horse should be well collected, a clear place selected, so far as circumstances allow, and the pace increased, though in short strides, up to the very brink. If the hounds jump at the brook, even though they fail to clear it, the rider may take it for granted that at that place the leap is within the capacity of any ordinary hunter in his stride; hence if, when going at three parts speed, a horse’s feet come just right to take off, the mere momentum of his body would take him over a place 15 ft. wide.

The experience of a single day’s hunting will teach thew novice that gates are far oftener opened than jumped; it is therefore necessary that a hunter should be handy at opening them. Many accidents have arisen from horses rushing through a gateway directly the latch is released, or from their jumping a gate at which they have been pulled up to enable the rider to open it. The horse should be taught to obey the leg as well as the hand, and, by a slight pressure of the leg, should throw his haunches round to the left or right as occasion may require.

Racing (see also ).—The qualities possessed by a good jockey, either on the fiat or across country, show the value of early instruction in riding. After having been some time in a training stable, a lad is put onfa quiet horse at exercise; his stirrups are adjusted, and the reins knotted for him at a proper length. He subsequently rides other horses, each with some peculiarity perhaps, and, to keep his place in the string, a sluggard must be kept going, and an impetuous one restrained; they cannot both" be ridden alike, but they must both be ridden as a jockey should ride them. In this way the lad learns the principle of holding a puller, getting pace out of a lazy one, and leaving well alone with a nice free but temperate mover; he learns to do everything in a horse manlike manner, and when he has raised himself to the pitch of a “fashionable” jockey, he will frequently be called upon to ride several horses a day at race meetings. A jockey must therefore, more than any other civilian rider, have a hand for all sorts of horses, and in the case of two and three year olds a very good hand it must be. The same ability to adapt himself to circumstances must be possessed by the steeple-chase jockey, who should possess fine hands to enable him to handle his horse while going at his fences at three-quarter speed. In most details the nearer a hunting man approaches to a steeple-chase jockey the better; but in the matter of the seat it must be remembered that a jockey’s exertions last but a few minutes, while none can tell when the hunting man may finish his day’s work; the jockey can therefore ride with more absolute grip during his race than the rider to hounds.

See also ; ; ; ; and.

RIDINGS are the three districts into which from ancient times Yorkshire has been divided for administrative purposes. Formerly there were similar districts in Lindsey in Lincolnshire. The word riding was originally Written as thfithing or thriding, but the initial th has been absorbed in the final th or t of the words north, south, east and west, by which it was normally preceded. Ridings are Scandinavian institutions. In Iceland the third part of a thing which corresponds roughly to an English county was called thrithjungr; in Norway, however, the thrithjungr seems to have been an ecclesiastical division. According to the 12th-century compilation known as the “laws of Edward the Confessor,” the riding was the third part of a county (provincia); to it causes were brought which could not be determined in the wapentake, and a matter which could not be determined in the riding was brought into the court of the shire. There is abundant evidence that riding courts were held after the Norman Conquest. A charter which Henry I. granted to the Church of St Peter’s at York mentions wapentacmot, tridingmot and shiresmot, and exemptions from suit to the thriding or riding may be noticed frequently in the charters of the Norman kings. As yet, however, the jurisdiction and functions of these courts have not been ascertained. It seems probable from the silence of the records that they had already fallen into disuse early in the 13th century.

Each of the ridings of Yorkshire has its own lord lieutenant and commission of the peace, and under the Local Government Act of 1888 forms a separate administrative county. They are distinguished as the north, east and west ridings, but the ancient