rd to sit. Like most
young animals, she hated ridge and furrow, and her temper was upset on
finding that she had to gallop down hill over this troublesome ground.
The necessity of devoting careful attention to the soundness of the
girth-tugs, stirrup-leather, and balance-strap when riding a horse which
is likely to buck is obvious, for of course if they give way under the
strain, no lady would be able to retain her seat.

REARING.

Rearing is the worst of all vices in a horse which has to carry a
side-saddle, because a lady, by reason of her side position and her
inability to lower her hands to the same extent as a man, is utterly
powerless on a rearer. I have seen men slip off over the animal's tail,
when he was standing on his hind legs, but this is a feat which a woman
is unable to accomplish, as I found when a horse reared and came over
with me at Tientsin in China, and hurt my spine so much that I felt its
effects for several years afterwards, especially after a hard day's
hunting, or a long swim. Swimming appears to tax the soundness of the
spinal bones quite as much as does riding. The best thing to do with a
rearer is to prevent him from fixing his hind legs, which he would have
to do before he can get up, and therefore a long whip should be used,
and the animal touched with it as near the hocks as possible, keeping
him at the same time on the turn to the right. Confirmed rearers are
however so quick in getting up on their hind legs, that the rider has no
time, even were she supplied with a sufficiently long whip, to get
anywhere near his hocks, and all she can do is to lean well forward and
leave his mouth alone. If she is still alive when he comes down, my
strong advice would be to get off his back, and give him, as the late
Mr. Abingdon Baird did in the case of a similar brute, to the first
passer by! Rearing is no test of horsemanship, and the sickening sight
of ladies in circuses mounted on rearers is one from which every good
horsewoman would recoil with horror. At Rentz circus in Hamburg I saw
one of these awful sights, and noticed that the ringmaster kept touching
the _steiger_ on the fore-legs with the whip in order to make him paw
the air. I have been told that so long as a rearing horse keeps pawing
in this manner, he will not fall over, but such horrid exhibitions ought
to be prevented. There is nothing more trying to the nerves of any rider
than hunting on a refuser which has a tendency to rear,