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e.--Ride with one pair of reins and two hands.--Advantage of hunting-horn on side-saddle.--On the best plan for mounting.--Rarey's plan.--On a man's seat.--Nolan's opinion.--Military style.--Hunting style.--Two examples in Lord Cardigan.--The Prussian style.--Anecdote by Mr. Gould, Blucher, and the Prince Regent.--Hints for men learning to ride.--How to use the reins.--Pull right for right, and left for left.--How to collect your horse. You cannot learn to ride from a book, but you may learn how to do some things and how to avoid many things of importance. Those who know all about horses and horsemanship, or fancy they do, will not read this chapter. But as there are riding-schools in the City of London, where an excellent business is done in teaching well-grown men how to ride for health or fashion, and as papas who know their own bump-bump style very well often desire to teach their daughters, I have collected the following instructions from my own experience, now extending over full thirty years, on horses of all kinds, including the worst, and from the best books on the subject, some of the best being anonymous contributions by distinguished horsemen, printed for private circulation. Every man and woman, girl and boy, who has the opportunity, should learn to ride on horseback. It is almost an additional sense--it is one of the healthiest exercises--it affords amusement when other amusements fail--relaxation from the most severe toil, and often, in colonies or wild countries, the only means of travelling or trading. A man feels twice a man on horseback. The student and the farmer meet, when mounted, the Cabinet Minister and the landlord on even terms--good horsemanship is a passport to acquaintances in all ranks of life, and to make acquaintances is one of the arts of civilised life; to ripen them into use or friendship is another art. On horseback you can call with less ceremony, and meet or leave a superior with less form than on foot. Rotten Row is the ride of idleness and pleasure, but there is a great deal of business done in sober walks and slow canters, commercial, political, and matrimonial. For a young lady not to be able to ride with a lover is a great loss; not to be able to ride with a young husband a serious privation. The first element for enjoying horse exercise is good horsemanship. Colonel Greenwood says very truly:--"_Good_ riding is worth acquiring by th
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