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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
In "The Horse and His Rider," Rollo Springfield weaves a compelling narrative that explores the intricate bond between humans and horses, delving into themes of companionship, loyalty, and the challenges of understanding one another across species. Springfield's prose is both lyrical and grounded, skillfully blending vivid descriptions with philosophical reflections, drawing upon literary influences from classic works in animal literature as well as contemporary narratives that highlight interpersonal relationships. Set against a backdrop of pastoral landscapes and equestrian culture, the story invites readers to reflect on the depths of trust and communication that exist within these remarkable partnerships. Rollo Springfield, an equestrian enthusiast and seasoned writer, crafts this poignant tale from a personal history steeped in a lifelong affection for horses. His experiences as a rider and trainer, coupled with an academic background in animal behavior, inform the narrative'Äôs authenticity and emotional weight. Springfield's belief in the transformative power of the human-animal bond resonates throughout the novel, reflecting his journey as both a writer and an advocate for animal welfare. "The Horse and His Rider" is a must-read for anyone interested in the relatable struggles of connection and empathy within and beyond the human realm. Springfield's evocative storytelling not only captivates but also educates, making it an enriching experience for lovers of literary fiction and animal enthusiasts alike.
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The Horse and His Rider
Table of Contents
CHAPTER IDOMESTICATION OF THE HORSE—HORSE FURNITURE—VARIOUS BREEDS—BLOOD HORSES—PONIES.
THE reduction of the horse to the domestic state, as Buffon justly observes, is the greatest acquisition from the animal world ever made by the art and industry of man. Every one knows and admires the graceful symmetry, the speed, vigour, docility, and endurance of that noble creature; but few, perhaps, have reflected on the important part he has played in the history of our race; few are aware how much we owe it to him, that we at this day are not as rude and wretched as our barbarian forefathers, but live surrounded by those countless blessings which are the birthright of every child born in a civilised land. We fear that there has been little gratitude or humanity evinced in our general treatment of the horse; and now that we rush along like the wind on the wings of steam, we are perhaps in danger of still more undervaluing his worth. But had we never known his aid, how different far would have been the fortunes of mankind! how hardly would it have fulfilled its destiny, to “multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth!” Unaided by the strength and swiftness of this generous servant, men would but partially and slowly have emerged from barbarism; at the most they would have congregated into tribes and petty states, covering only as much ground as might be traversed in a day’s march or two on foot; and these would have been perpetually engaged in war and rapine: but peace, order, plenty, knowledge, and national power, could never have been established or have made progress, so long as men, divided by wide tracts of country, had no means of rapidly communicating with each other, and of uniting together for their mutual welfare.
Neither sacred nor profane history informs us in what country the horse was first domesticated, or whether he was first used for draught or riding. It is probable that the animal was employed for both purposes in very early times, and in various parts of the world; but though many of the ancients possessed great mastery over their horses, and performed with them admirable feats of skill and agility, it is nevertheless surprising by what slow steps the arts and inventions, connected with horsemanship, have reached their present degree of perfection. The polished Greeks, as well as the ruder nations of northern Africa, for a long while rode without either saddle or bridle, guiding their horses with the voice or the hand, or with a light switch. They touched the animal on the right or left of the face to make him turn in the opposite direction; they stopped him by touching his muzzle, and urged him forward with the heel. The horses must have been excellently trained, to be governed by such slight means, in the violence of their course, or in the tumult of battle; but the attention, docility, and memory of this animal are such, that it is hard to say to what a degree of obedience he may not be brought.
Bridles and bits were at length introduced; but many centuries elapsed before any thing that can properly be called a saddle was used. Instead of these, cloths, single or padded, and skins of wild beasts, often richly adorned, were placed beneath the rider, but always without stirrups. It is a very extraordinary fact that even the Romans, in the times when luxury was carried to the utmost excess amongst them, never devised so simple an expedient for assisting the horseman to mount, lessening his fatigue, and securing his seat, although painful diseases were not infrequently eased by the habit of riding with the feet unsupported. Many ancient sculptures prove that the horsemen of almost every country used to mount on the right side of the animal, in order the better to grasp the mane which hangs on that side. The practice is invariably reversed in modern days, and none but a Billy Button would think of mounting on the off side, notwithstanding the classical authority that may be alleged for so doing.
The ancient heroes generally leaped on their horses’ backs; or their spear, if they carried one, had a loop, or projection, about two feet from the bottom, which served them as a step. The horse was sometimes trained to lower his neck and back, or to kneel down for his rider; and both in Greece and Rome the local magistracy were bound to see that blocks, for mounting from (what the Scotch call loupin-on stanes), were placed along the roads at convenient distances. The great, however, thought it more dignified to use living blocks, and to climb into their seats, by setting their feet on the bent backs of their slaves; and many who could not command such costly help used to carry a light ladder about with them—a curious piece of horse furniture!
What a signal instance was given of the deep humiliation into which Imperial Rome had fallen, when a haughty Persian monarch mounted his horse from the back of the Emperor Valerian! The use of stirrups left pride and insolence without a pretext for thus degrading God’s image. Instead of offering his back to be trampled on, the servant now only held the stirrup for his lord. In the middle ages, the great were fond of exacting this token of servility from their humbled rivals: Emperors of Germany have held the stirrup for the Pope; and Henry II. of England, when his rancour against Thomas à Becket was hottest, thought to cajole the great prelate by a similar show of feigned respect.
The first distinct notice we have of the use of the saddle occurs in an edict of the Emperor Theodosius (A.D. 385); from which we also learn that it was usual for those who hired post-horses to provide their own saddles. The edict directs that no traveller shall use a saddle weighing more than sixty pounds! Such cumbrous contrivances must have been more like the howdahs placed on the backs of elephants, than the light and elegant saddle of modern times. Fortunately for the soldiers of those days, it does not appear that the military punishment of “carrying the saddle” was devised until a later period. It was commonly inflicted on horse-soldiers, and even on knights in the middle ages, for breach of discipline. A saddle, bridle, and other appurtenances were laid on the offender’s shoulders, and he was compelled to march about for a certain length of time, without stopping, exposed to the scoffs and jeers of all who saw him thus oddly accoutred. Well for him that his burden did not amount to the liberal weight allowed by the Roman emperor!
Side-saddles for ladies were an invention of comparatively recent date. The first seen in England was made for Anne of Bohemia, Richard the Second’s queen. It was, probably, more like a pillion than the side-saddle of our day; and if any of our young readers do not know what is meant by the word “pillion,” their grandmammas may, perhaps, be able to describe the thing to them from recollection, for it was in high fashion not a great many years ago. It was a sort of very low-backed arm-chair, which was fastened on the horse’s croup, behind the saddle, on which a man rode who had all the care of managing the horse, while the lady sat at her ease, supporting herself by grasping a belt which he wore, or by passing her arm round his body—if the gentleman was not too ticklish.
Horse-shoeing was not practised for many centuries after the horse himself was in very general use; nor were hoof-protectors essentially necessary until paved tracts and hard roads became more frequent than they were in old times. The first foot defence of the horse seems to have been copied from that of his master. It was a sort of sandal, commonly made of matting, rope, or leather. The Emperor Nero, in his profusion, had his horses and mules shod with silver; and his Empress, Poppæa, was not content with less than gold for the same purpose. These sandals were very insecure, and were apt to be left sticking in the mud; they were, therefore, seldom put on the animal for the whole journey, but only at the worst places. Nor do they appear to have been adequate to protect the hoof from injury; for instance, when Mithridates was besieging the town of Cyzicus, in his first war against the Romans, he was obliged to send away his whole cavalry to Bithynia, because the horses’ hoofs were all worn down, and their feet disordered.
Here again, as in the case of the stirrupless saddle, we are lost in wonder at the fact, that men should, for nearly a thousand years, have gone on fastening plates of metal under horses’ hoofs by the clumsy means of strings and bands; and that it should never in all that time have occurred to them to try nails where strings had failed. Next to the inventive powers of men there is really nothing so wonderful as their want of inventiveness, and the stupid way in which they will continue from generation to generation, doing something very absurd from mere force of habit, and utter want of thought! It is humiliating to think, how men have been content to remain for ages separated by the smallest possible partitions from discoveries in the arts, that tend to the convenience and embellishment of life. We have had India rubber ever since America was explored, yet, until a few years ago, we made no use of it except for rubbing pencil marks out of paper!
Here follows a charade by no less eminent a person than the great statesman, Charles James Fox. Why do we introduce it in this place? That is a question which the ingenious reader will answer for himself when he shall have solved the charade. The key to it will be found in the preceding pages:—
The various uses for which the horse is habitually employed require corresponding varieties in the make and shape of the animal. The dray horses of the London brewers are very handsome; but their beauty is of a different kind from that of the Newmarket racer. That which is a good quality in one kind of horse may be a defect in another. An animal, for instance, which is intended for the saddle ought to stand with his fore legs erect; if they slope backwards from shoulder to hoof the rider must be very cautious, for he has to do with a stumbler. A draught-horse, on the other hand, ought to lean a little forward over his fore feet when at rest. That portion of his own weight which brings down the ill-made saddle-horse on his knees, is by the draught-horse thrown against the collar, and helps him in his labour. Look at a team straining hard to drag a heavy wagon out of a rut or over some obstruction: they fling themselves forward, so as to be kept from falling only by the traces, just as you may see a man doing who tugs at a rope fastened to a canal-boat, or a truck. Again, though the hunter and the racer are both made for speed, they must each exhibit certain peculiarities of form adapted to the work they have respectively to do. The hunter requires great strength and elasticity in his forehand, to enable him to bear the shock with which he alights on the ground from a leap. In the racer, on the contrary, the principal power is wanted from behind, to propel the animal forward in his gallop; and the very lowness of the forehand may throw more weight in front, and cause the whole machine to be more easily and speedily moved. The hind-legs of the greyhound are longer than the fore-legs; the difference is still more remarkable in the hare, and it is seen in an extraordinary degree in the kangaroo, an animal whose running is a series of prodigious leaps. The celebrated Eclipse, who never was beaten, was remarkably low in front, his hind-quarters even rising above his fore ones. As we have mentioned the name of this unrivalled runner, we cannot do less than give some particulars of his history.
He was bred by the Duke of Cumberland, and sold at his death to Mr. Wildman, a sheep salesman, for seventy-five guineas. Colonel O’Kelly purchased a share of him from Wildman. In the spring of the following year, when the reputation of this wonderful animal was at its height, O’Kelly wished to become sole owner of him, and bought the remaining share for eleven hundred guineas.
O’Kelly, aware of his horse’s powers, backed him freely on his first race in 1769. This excited curiosity among sporting men; they thought the colonel must have had some extraordinary reason for betting largely on a horse that no one had ever heard of before, and that had not given any public proof of his powers. Some persons, accordingly, tried to watch one of his trials; which the owner, no doubt, wished to keep as secret as possible. They were a little too late on the ground; but they found an old woman, who gave them all the information they wanted. On their inquiring, whether she had seen a race, she replied, she could not tell whether it was a race or not, but she had just seen a horse with a white leg running away at a monstrous rate, and another horse, a great way behind, trying to run after him; but she was sure he would never catch the white-legged horse if he ran to the world’s end.
The first heat was easily won, when O’Kelly, observing that the rider had been pulling at Eclipse during the whole of the race, offered a wager that he would place the horses in the next heat (that is, that he would name the order in which they would be when the foremost reached the winning post). This seemed a thing so highly improbable that he immediately had bets to a large amount. Being called on to declare, he replied—“Eclipse first, and the rest nowhere!” The event justified his prediction; for all the others were distanced by Eclipse with the greatest ease (that is, he was at the winning post before they had reached another 240 yards behind it, called the distancing post), and thus, in the language of the turf, they had no place.
The pecuniary value of Eclipse and his progeny must have been something enormous. He was the sire of 354 winners, and these netted to their owners more than £160,000, exclusive of plates and cups. Ten years after he was withdrawn from the turf; O’Kelly was asked at what price he would sell him. At first he peremptorily refused to accept any price; but after some reflection, he said he would take £25,000, with an annuity of £500, besides certain privileges. The seeming extravagance of this sum excited considerable remark, but O’Kelly declared he had already cleared more than £25,000 by Eclipse, and that the animal was still young enough to earn double that sum.
From what we have said above, it appears that there are various standards of perfection for the horse’s form, and that there must be a certain vagueness in any general description which shall include them all. It is not a little remarkable that we are indebted to Terentius Varro, who wrote about the year 70 B.C., for a description of the horse which, in the opinion of so excellent a judge as Mr. Youatt, has scarcely been surpassed in modern times:—“We may prognosticate great things of a colt,” he says, “if, when running in the pastures, he is ambitious to get before his companions, and if, on coming to a river, he strives to be the first to plunge into it. His head should be small, his limbs clean and compact, his eyes bright and sparkling, his nostrils open and large, his ears placed near each other, his mane strong and full, his chest broad, his shoulders flat and sloping backwards, his loins broad and strong, his tail full and bushy, his legs straight and even, his knees broad and well knit, his hoofs hard and tough, and his veins large and swelling over all his body.”
The English thoroughbred horse, perhaps the finest animal of his kind in the world, derives his descent almost wholly from the Arab and the Barb. Instead of giving a prosaic description of his points, which those who desire it may find in books of a more technical character than ours: we will put him bodily before the reader in Barry Cornwall’s vigorous lines:—
Nature has assigned to many races of animals certain geographical limits, beyond which they cannot thrive. Others, on the contrary, are so framed as to be capable of maintaining life and health in countries very widely diffused, and essentially differing in temperature, climate, and food, from those to which they appear indigenous. Fortunately for man, among this number are some of those animals that render him the most essential services,—as the dog, the ox, the sheep, the hog, and the horse. The constitution of these useful allies is endowed with a capacity for adapting itself, more or less, to external circumstances; above all, their respective bulk undergoes notable variations proportioned to the ordinary supply of food within their reach. In the rich pastures of Flanders and of Lincolnshire the horse expands to its largest dimensions, whilst in mountainous regions and in northern islands it becomes a pony.
There is an East Indian pony called the Tattoo, commonly from ten to twelve hands high (a hand is four inches); they are sometimes much smaller. Tavernier describes one which he saw ridden by a young Mogul prince, which was not much larger than a greyhound. In 1765, one not more than seven hands, or twenty-eight inches high, was sent to England as a present to the Queen of George III. It was taken from the ship to the palace in a hackney-coach. It was of a dun colour, and its hair resembled that of a young fawn. It was four years old, well proportioned, had fine ears, a quick eye, with a handsome long tail, and was thoroughly good-natured and manageable.
Hurdwar, in Upper India, is the site of a great cattle fair; Colonel Davidson, describing his visit to this busy scene, says, that among the greatest curiosities he witnessed were half-a-dozen powerful ponies from Usbeck Tartary, called phooldars, which means flower-marked. They were under thirteen hands high, and of the most curious compound colours or marks that can be imagined. A description cannot easily be given, but it may be attempted. Suppose, in the first place, that the animal is of a fine snow white; cover the white with large, irregular, bright bay spots; in the middle of these light bay let there be dark bay marbled spots; at every six or eight inches plant lozenge-shaped patches of a very dark iron grey; then sprinkle the whole with dark flea-bites. There is a phooldar! What a sensation one of these animals would excite in the London Parks!
The horses of the Feroe Islands are of small growth, but strong, swift, and sure of foot, going over the roughest places, so that a man may more surely rely on them than trust to his own feet. In Suderoe, one of these islands, they have a lighter and swifter breed than in any of the rest. On their backs the inhabitants pursue the sheep, which are wild in this island; the pony carries the man over places which would be otherwise inaccessible to him—follows his rider over others—enters into the full sport of the chase, and even knocks down and holds the prey under his feet until the rider can take possession of it.
The British islands produce several interesting breeds of ponies. The largest of these, the Scotch Galloway, is unfortunately almost extinct. It was from thirteen to fourteen hands high, of a bright bay or brown, with black legs, small head and neck, and peculiarly deep and clean legs. Its qualities were speed, stoutness, and surefootedness over a very rugged and mountainous country. Dandie Dinmont’s famous Dumple was of this breed. Dr. Anderson thus describes a galloway belonging to himself:—“In point of elegance of shape it was a perfect picture, and in disposition it was gentle and compliant. It moved almost with a wish, and never tired. I rode this little creature for twenty-five years, and twice in that time I rode a hundred and fifty miles at a stretch, without stopping, except to bait, and that not for above an hour at a time. It came in at the last stage with as much ease and alacrity as it travelled the first. I could have undertaken to perform on this beast, when it was in its prime, sixty miles a day for a twelvemonth, without any extraordinary exertion.”
