Rocking horse

“ He cracks his whip; the horses throw up their heads and break into a canter; the cavaliers turn pea-green about the chops, let go the reins and clutch saddle-pommels.
The leading horse, a rakish chestnut, finding his head free at last and being heartily fed-up with the whole business, suddenly bolts out of the manège and legs it across the meadow, en route for stables and tea. ”

“ The cropped-eared head of the gigantic horse moved steadily forward, always keeping from six to eight yards in advance. The horseman, unaided by whip or spur, and disdaining the use of stirrups, which dangled uselessly from the saddle, followed at a trot by Charley’s side, his hideous head now lost behind the lappet of his coat, now starting forth in all its horror, as the motion of the horse caused his arm to move to and fro. ”

“ A person who has never tried it, can hardly conceive the wild delight of riding a swift horse, when he lays down his ears, tosses his tail in air, and stretches himself out in a full race. The intense energy of the beast's movements, the rush of the air, the swimming backward of lands, houses, and trees, with the clattering thunder of the hoofs—all convey to the rider a fierce ecstasy, which, perhaps, nothing else can give. ”

“ Again the horses sprang to the pace they had kept so gallantly, and on and on their hoofs flew over the low, rolling hills. The riders sat their horses as if they were part and parcel of the beasts, horse and rider with one will and one motion, and all galloping on with rhythmic hoof-beats, neck to neck and heel to heel, without pause or slackened pace, while the cold, dry night wind whistled past their ears and the stars measured their courses through the violet blue of the bending vault above. ”

“ He spurs his horse, he winds his horn, "Hark forward, forward, holla, ho!"— But off, on whirlwind's pinions borne, The stag, the hut, the hermit, go.
And horse and man, and horn and hound, And clamor of the chase, was gone; For hoofs, and howls, and bugle-sound, A deadly silence reigned alone.
Wild gazed the affrighted Earl around; He strove in vain to wake his horn, In vain to call: for not a sound Could from his anxious lips be borne.
He listens for his trusty hounds; No distant baying reached his ears: His courser rooted to the ground, The quickening spur unmindful bears. ”

“ Confident in the qualities of his steed, he knows he will not long ride in the rear.
And the blood-bay answers his expectations. As if joyed at being relieved from his inert load—to him an incubus inexplicable—and inspired by the pressure of his master’s knees, the noble horse springs off over the prairie turf—in long sinewy strides, showing that his body still retains its strength, and his limbs their elasticity. ”

“ Lightly it rose into the air, cleared the stream, with all its banks of rock and bed of stones, but reached the opposite side only to die; for the noble horse sank down with its forehead on the turf, and after making more than one fruitless effort to rise, rolled heavily over, stretched out its legs convulsively, and with that mournful cry which few hear, but a horse alone can give, expired. ”

“ Still, as of old, the wide and spreading grasslands try horse and rider with a tempting challenge, as of one who cries, ‘Come, who will tire first?’ The music of the hounds sweeps down the brae: ‘Yoi—yoi—yoi!’ quivers the cry from the streaming pack. Onward the rider gallops, the plover perchance rising at his horse’s heels, the long note of the curlew sounding in his ears, the breath of the west wind racing in his nostrils ”

“ At the part where it runs, the horse’s neck projects over the abyss, and the guide is obliged to hold him up by a rope secured to the load on his back, or even by holding on to his tail with all his might. ”

“ Now, however, this clumsy-barrelled, cloddy-shouldered, round-legged animal, something between a coach and a dray horse, as fat as an ox, and, with all his prancing at first starting, not capable of more than six miles an hour, and rendered useless by a day’s hard work, is no more seen; and, instead of him, we find a horse as tall, deep-chested, rising in the withers, slanting in the shoulders, flat in the legs, with more strength, and with treble the speed. ”

“ It was composed of living forms—the most beautiful known in nature: for in this man must give way to the horse. Not the unsexed horse of civilisation, with hunched shoulders, bandied limbs, and bowed frontlet—scarce one in a thousand of true equine shape—and this, still further, mutilated by the shears of the coper and gentleman jockey—but the wild steed of the savannas, foaled upon the green grass, his form left free to develop as the flowers that shed their fragrance around him. ”

“ Again, in the hunting-field, a noble, high-couraged horse, a rusher at any description of fence, the very sight of which seems to inflame his ardour, in most gallant style charges a brook, which when he is in the air he sees is too broad to be cleared. On his chest striking against the bank, and while his rider, delighted at feeling that he is not a bit hurt, is luxuriously rolling over and over on the green grass like a rabbit that at full speed has been shot dead, this gallant steed makes two, three, or four desperate efforts to get to him ”

“ Among the Rocky Mountains one sometimes meets with strange companions; and on her ride from Hall's Gulch to Deer Valley Miss Bird was joined by a horseman, who would have made a fine hero of melodrama. A picturesque figure he looked on his good horse, with his long fair curls drooping from under a big slouch hat almost to his waist; a fine beard, good blue eyes, a ruddy complexion, a frank expression of countenance, and a courteous, respectful bearing. He wore a hunter's buckskin suit, ornamented with beads, and a pair of very big brass spurs. His saddle was elaborately ornamented. ”

“ Of better night sight than his rider, and no more eager than he to be trampled into a bloody pulp, the horse would put out unasked his limit of speed and care of footing. Trust him, also, to edge ahead or outside of any enveloping part of the herd. ”

“ And when employed in military bands—why, a horse looks a complete fool between a couple of these gigantic basins, each with its long tag-rag of unmeaning velvet, beplastered and bedizened with lace and gold, streaming from it ”

“ There is no retreat, and the plunging horses ahead, on a precarious trail, promise little safety. My horse overruns Charmian’s horse, and that sensitive creature, fresh-stung at the psychological moment, planks one of his hoofs into my horse and the other hoof into me. I thank my stars that he is not steel-shod, and half-arise from the saddle at the impact of another flaming dagger. I am certainly getting more than my share, and so is my poor horse, whose pain and panic are only exceeded by mine. ”

“ They never groom their horses and never clean the harness or bits, yet the horses keep fit as fiddles and look really well too. Their intelligence is extraordinary. Almost every night I see the old chap, at whose farm I keep my own horses, come in with four or five horses from ploughing—riding on one, not in the orthodox fashion, i.e., astride, but with both legs hanging over the horse's near side, something like ladies' style of riding, but without saddle, braces, or stirrups. He is leading no fewer than four other horses on one rein—a remarkable thing in itself. ”

“ Usually he at first turns and runs, and you dash after him through timber or over plain, the great loop of your lariat circling and hissing about your head, the noble horse between your knees straining every muscle in pursuit, until, come to fit distance, the loop is cast. It settles and tightens round the monster's horns, and your horse stops and braces himself to the shock that may either throw the quarry or cast horse and rider to the ground, helpless, at his mercy. ”

“ The horse, too, had his life in the race. Unheeding the wild waving of the old trainer's arms, he swept by him with head still up and ears still forward, his eyes riveted on the horses galloping in front of him. Once or twice his ears were bent toward the big fence as if to gauge it, and then his eyes looked off to the horses running up the slope beyond it. When he reached the jump he rose so far from it that a cry of anxiety went up. But it changed to a wild shout of applause as he cleared everything in his stride and lighted far beyond the water. ”

“ Down the mountain again, with never a shy or a snort––the horse knowing the rider, and the man the noble beast; the lizards wheetling merrily, and the paroquets on the tree-tops waking up to chatter with satisfaction. Then into the beaten track along by the sea-shore, the horse increasing his stride at every minute, the spume flying in flakes from his flaming nostrils, and the man bending to his 261 hot neck, smoothing away the white foam, until, with a panting stagger, horse and rider stood still in the town of Kingston. ”

“ When a horse is standing still, or lying fast asleep in his stable, his shoes are, of course, firmer when wholly than when only half-nailed. So soon, however, as, mounted by say a heavy man, he begins to move, there commences, out of sight of every human eye, a desperate, and in deep ground a subterranean struggle between the works of Nature and of Vulcan the blacksmith, or, in plainer words, between the expansive efforts of the frog and hoof and the arbitrary metallic shoe that is restraining them. ”

“ As many horses, especially Australian buck-jumpers, are very shy of being touched with the heels, or even gripped closely with the knees, it is well to try if the animal we have in hand is affected with this form of timidity. For this object, we may gently prod the horse with the rounded end of a pole, in the ribs, while an assistant takes him round with the leading-rein, until he ceases to mind the touch of the pole. ”

“ Neither man nor horse might stand up before 'em, and they faring as in a maze now this way now that, amid the thrumbling and thrasting o' the footmen, heads and arms smitten off, men hewn in sunder from crown to belly, ay, to the saddle, riderless horses maddened, blood splashed up from the ground like the slush from a marsh. ”

“ The rider must always bear in mind, that every [16] movement of the bridle, the leg, and of the whip, is felt, and responded to, by the sensitiveness of the horse; when she errs, the horse goes wrong, it is therefore indispensable that they should act in conjunction. ”

“ The most of 'em would start the horse on a high lope, and from the time they got on him till he was brought back, that high lope, instead of being let up on, would most always wind up into a high run. Up and down the side streets they'd race him, loan him to other boys to race him some more, and each would do their best to show off on how fast they could make the tired horse go. ”

“ The horse of the fox-hunter, of the race-rider, of the mounted soldier—every one of these noble beasts has the fullest understanding of his rider's calling, and gives it his completest sympathy with the greatest assistance in his power. Who that has known the horse at his best can have failed to observe and recognize and be moved by this fact? We have all seen that the hunter hardly needs the touch of his rider's knee to be off like the wind and to go without urging from whip or spur on to the end of the chase ”

“ This time the dappled horse was not unwilling to go away with the youth, so he mounted it, and when he came riding home to his brothers they all smote their hands together and crossed themselves, for never in their lives had they either seen or heard tell of such a horse as that.
‘If you will procure me the best shoes for my horse, and the most magnificent saddle and bridle that can be found,’ said the youth, ‘you may have all my twelve mares just as they are standing out on the hill, and their twelve foals into the bargain.’ For this year also each mare had her foal. ”

“ My impression is, despite the numerous bits devised and advertised to stop runaways, that nothing short of a long and steep hill, a steam-cultivated, stiff clay fallow, or the Bog of Allen, will stop the determined bolt of a self-willed, callous-mouthed horse. There is no use pulling at him, for the more you pull the harder he hardens his heart and his mouth. ”

“ Then comes the struggle, in which the rough rider requires great skill, tact, and experience, for a horse will do anything to unseat his rider the first time. Unmercifully sharp bits are used, but the horse is guided more by the rein on the neck. ”

“ In taking an up jump leave him abundance of head-room, and sit well back, lest in his effort he knock you in the face. If the jump is a down one—what is known as an "ugly drop"—follow the same rules; but, when your horse is landing, give him good support from the bridle, as, should the ground be at all soft or marshy, he might be apt to peck, and so give you an ugly fall. ”

“ Do not urge your horse suddenly from a canter into a full gallop; let him settle down to his pace gradually—steady him. Being jumped off, like a racehorse with a flying start at the fall of the flag, is very apt to make a hot, high-couraged horse run away or attempt to do so. ”

“ Schoolboys are coming to see the start on ponies; farmers on clever nags; others on young horses of great price; neatly-dressed grooms, some heavy and some light, are riding, or riding and leading, horses magnificent in shape and breeding, in the most beautiful condition, all as clean and well-appointed as if they had been prepared to do miserable penance in Rotten Row. ”