The Barb and the Bridle: A Handbook of Equitation for Ladies, and Manual of Instruction in the Science of Riding, from the Preparatory Suppling ExercisesHenderson, Robert, active 1866-1874
Science
The Barb and the Bridle: A Handbook of Equitation for Ladies, and Manual of Instruction in the Science of Riding, from the Preparatory Suppling Exercises
Henderson, Robert, active 1866-1874
Horsemanship
In the first place, as regards riding habiliments, I recommend ladies
going to India to procure everything in the shape of habits, trousers,
and hats in this country. In India they cost a hundred per cent. more
than at home, and the natives can only make them by pattern. Riding
boots can be procured in the East quite as well made and as durable as
those made in England, and at a fifth of the price.
Saddlery should be taken out from England. It is also just a hundred per
cent. dearer in India. One good side-saddle, such as I have previously
described, will with care last a lady many years. Of bridles she should
take at least half a dozen double ones (bit and bridoon). Horse clothing
of any sort as used in England is not required in India.
As regards the horse itself on which the fair emigrant to the East will
take her health-preserving morning gallop at gun-fire, I must say
little. I have endeavoured elsewhere to give some idea of what Arab
horses are; and, as every lady going to India is certain to know some
male friend who is well up at buying a lady's horse, I need only say
that, if the animal purchased is a young unbroken one, the best plan is
to send him to the nearest cavalry or horse artillery station, and have
him broken precisely in the same form as an officer's charger. The Arab
dealers from whom the horse, if unbroken, is most likely to be
purchased, know nothing, and care less, about breaking, and the people
about them have the very worst hands upon a horse I have ever seen.
All riding in India, except in cases of absolute necessity, should be
done very early in the morning. The lady should be in the saddle soon
after gun-fire (five o'clock). By the time she arrives at the galloping
ground (in a large station or cantonment generally the racecourse) the
sun will be up, so quickly does it rise, with scarcely any twilight, in
India; but its rays are not then vertical, nor is the heat either
oppressive or injurious until much later in the day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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