To become an expert oarsman one must give months, even years, to practice. This holds true of all sports in which one wishes to excel, and yet the average man evidently thinks, from the assurance he displays in sallying forth to ride, that he can without any training mount a horse and forthwith become a perfect horseman, when the only equipment he has for the undertaking consists of his two legs which enable him to sit astride the saddle. But this does not constitute riding in its true sense. That is an accomplishment to be acquired only by the most painstaking training and long practice. When one sees the men—and women too, for that matter—who, having had no training and possessing no knowledge of the horse, yet insist upon attempting to ride, he is reminded forcibly of the old adage that every man thinks he can run a newspaper or keep a hotel. So it is with horsemanship. If the novices who venture into Central Park on horseback and out upon the road could see themselves as the true horseman sees them, they would perhaps conclude that riding is an accomplishment in which they are wofully deficient. [Illustration: SOCIETY IN THE SADDLE—A RIDING ACADEMY CLASS.] But the ridiculous features in the riding of the novice are of little importance as compared with the danger to the rider and a greater danger to others, for it is the horse of the novice, for the most part, that makes riding on the Central Park bridle path, or any crowded thoroughfare, so hazardous. Anything that gains the stamp of social approbation is sure to be taken up by a veritable army of would-be fashionables. This latter set, which in a city like New York is a numerous one, moved by an intense eagerness to “do the correct thing,” immediately takes it up and makes a “fad” of it, regardless of such considerations as fitness or lack of fitness for the thing attempted. But fortunately for horsemanship this superficial class does not constitute the great body of riders in the metropolis. Horsemanship has taken too firm a hold of the intelligent and wealthy portion of the community, who as a rule do things well, to be in danger of such declension. It has awakened an interest that has prompted the establishment of not less than half a dozen large training schools and several riding clubs, of which many of the best citizens of the city are members. The work of the training schools—and all of them are kept busy—includes individual instruction during the day and class riding in the evening. A few years ago but one or two riding schools had been established in New York, and their recent increase shows how rapidly horsemanship has gained in popularity. The riding teachers, and each school has a number, are almost without exception drawn from the best European institutions of the kind. With such instructors the schools of New York are turning out as fine riders as the English or French academies. The number of enthusiastic