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HOW WOMEN SHOULD RIDE
BY
"C. DE HURST"
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
1892
All rights reserved.
E. E. F.
TO WHOM I OWE THE EXPERIENCE
WHICH HAS ENABLED ME TO WRITE OF RIDING
THIS BOOK
IS GRATEFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY
DEDICATED
INTRODUCTION
It has not been the intention of the author of this little volume topresent the reader with elaborate chapters of technical essays.
Entire libraries have been written on the care and management of thehorse from the date of its foaling; book upon book has been compiledon the best and proper method of acquiring some degree of skill in thesaddle. The author has scarcely hoped, therefore, to exhaust in 248pages a subject which, after having been handled on the presses ofnearly every publisher in this country and England, yet containsunsettled points for[vi] the discussion of argumentative horse-men andhorse-women.
But it happens with riding—as, indeed, it does with almost everyother subject—that we ignore the simpler side for the more intricate.We delve into a masterpiece, suitable for a professional, on thetraining of a horse, when the chances are we do not know how to saddlehim. We stumble through heavy articles on bitting, the technical termsof which we do not understand, when if our own horse picked up a stonewe probably would be utterly at a loss what to do.
We, both men and women, are too much inclined to gallop over thefundamental lessons, which should be conned over again and again untilthoroughly mastered. We are restive in our novitiate period, impatientto pose as past-masters in an art before we have acquired its firstprinciples.[vii]
Beginning with a bit of advice to parents, of which they stand sorelyin need, it is the purpose of this book to carry the girl along thebridle-path, from the time she puts on a habit for the first attempt,to that when she joins the Hunt for