DRIVING ONE HORSE

Once you have a horse and know something of his make-up inside and out, and have housed him properly, and bought his harness and learned something of its use, the next thing is to make the connection, first between the horse and the vehicle, and then between yourself and the horse.

The carriage should be run out first, the pole or shafts put in place and dusted, the proper whip and robes got together. It may be well for the owner to realize that a man alone should have at least three-quarters of an hour to turn out on the box of a brougham or Victoria, proportionally less time for a runabout or other light carriage, on which he is to appear in stable clothes. The horse should be brought out of or turned in his stall and attached to the pillar-reins, and his feet, coat, and head gone over. The collar should then be stretched and put over his head, being careful not to rub hard against the eye-bones in so doing, fasten on the hames, and turn the collar into place. It is easier to fasten hames on to the collar before the collar is turned. Then put on the bridle, seeing to it that the bit is in its proper place, as well as the winkers, and that both sides of the bridle are of the same length. The saddle should be placed first well back on the horse, so that the crupper may be put under the tail without undue pulling and hauling. Then place the saddle where it belongs on the horse's back, and tighten up the girth. Run the reins through their terrets and fasten them to the bit, and lead your horse out and back him into the shafts. Never take hold of the bit in leading him out but by the nose-band. If you slip or stumble or he throws his head, if you have him by the bit you jab him in the mouth, and then even before he is in the vehicle he is sensitive and restive. Put your horse as near the carriage as possible without danger of hitting when in motion. The tug girth, which holds the shafts, should be tight enough to hold the shafts in place in a four-wheeled carriage, but loose enough to allow a certain amount of play in two-wheeled carriages. Where, as in a gig harness, the play is given by the tug itself, this is not necessary.

In unharnessing, take off the bearing-rein, unfasten the traces, then the tug girth—not vice versa, so that if a horse starts forward there will be something to prevent the carriage running on his heels. Always loosen a curb-chain before taking off a bridle,—this applies equally to the horse in harness or under saddle,—and lastly the breeching. The reins should be unbuckled from the bit, drawn back through the terrets, and hung over the arm or out of the way. Take off the pad, turn the collar, and take off the hames, then turn the collar back and leave it in its place a few minutes to prevent galled shoulders. The bit and curb-chain should be thrown into the bucket of lime water, or at any rate cleaned carefully at once. It is much easier to prevent rust than to get it off.

In taking out a pair, the reins should be unbuckled first of all and pulled through from the front. If you drive into the stable, do it yourself before dismounting. In taking off the traces, begin with the inside one, then the outside one, then the pole-chains or pole-pieces. Take off the saddles, turn the collars, remove the hames, leaving collars on as before. It is a great saving of time, and lessens confusion, to fix the habit of both harnessing and unharnessing in a regular way, until it becomes mechanical; and mistakes are not made, and accidents do not happen, because the habit of doing things properly has become fixed. Have your buckle-rein on off-side horse. First, because that marks the rein, and, secondly, because as that rein is the one not thrown across there is less likelihood of hitting and hurting the attendant on that side.

Before you take the reins in your hand look over the trap, harness, and horse, and see that all is right. The stop on the shafts should by all means be behind the tugs; the traces, collar, breeching, bridle, girths, bit, bearing-rein, should be looked over, first, to see if you may drive in safety, and then to confirm you in what you have learned about these things.

Take the reins in the left hand, the near rein over the second finger, the off rein between the third and fourth finger. No matter what the vehicle is, take the whip with you when you get into it. The whip in the socket is in the way, and the whip should be almost as constantly in the hands as the reins anyway, so that it is better to begin with the whip where it belongs. Then place the reins in the right hand with the whip, mount to your place, take your seat quickly, change the reins back into the left hand, see that they are about the right length without feeling your horse's mouth, which would make him start before you are ready, and you are ready to send your first telegram to your horse. Do it discreetly, gently, and if you are not where your voice will disturb other horses, add a word of some kind, preferably a signal not in common use between men and horses. A horse learns quickly to recognize, and does not forget, his owner's voice. That voice encourages, soothes, or commands him. But where you are driving with or surrounded by others, the use of your voice in the well-known click or chirrup would disturb all the horses and coachmen about you. It is easy to accustom your own horses to any phrase: "Come on now," "Look alive," or even "What's the matter?" which conveys no message to other horses and at the same time rouses your own. The writer has an intimate acquaintance with several horses who will start into action at hearing "Come on now," in a well-known voice.

Nothing is more disagreeable at a railway station, in a hurly-burly of traps and horses, than the clicking and clucking and snapping of whips, which, while meant for one or two horses, disturb half a dozen. Two-thirds of the coachmen on private carriages catch sight of their masters, flap the horses with the reins, swing the whip, and chirrup; and yet they would be surprised to be told that they do not know the rudiments of driving. Nothing smacks more of the farmer than a man who, behind you, or passing you, or standing near you and wishing to start, clicks or clucks to his horse, starting your horse up at the same time. A man who cannot start one, two, or four horses with his hands, and without a hullabaloo of noise, is unworthy to sit behind horses at all. If your horses are new to your stable, or awkward and untrained, feel the mouth gently, and if this is not understood or is misunderstood, use the whip gently and make your start in that way. The perfection of starting is to have the horse feel his bit on his bars almost exactly at the moment his shoulders feel the collar—a fraction of a lightning stroke after, to be exact.

When you are ready to start either out of the stable or from the door, have the man stand clear. No leading of the horse forward, no pulling at bit or nose-band; give the horse a chance to learn what you want of him without puzzling him with a variety of signals.

It is a little ahead of time to speak of it here, but, lest we forget, it may be mentioned at once. Never allow the groom or grooms to stop your horse or horses, whether one, two, or four, when you drive into the stable. This makes horses restless, makes them back, slide, or kick, and in the case of a four may result in a general mix-up. Stop your horses gradually, with voice and reins, but stop them yourself. They have come in from the drive more or less accustomed to your hands and ways, according as you are more or less proficient, and a rough hand on bit or nose, and an apparition in front of them, ought to, and generally does, upset them. Besides all this you ought to, and they ought to know how to stop properly, and without fuss or flurry exactly when and where you wish them to, even if it be on the cement floor of your stable entrance.

The reins should be held with the near rein between the thumb and first finger, the off rein between the third and fourth fingers. Hold your hand so that your knuckles, turned toward your horse, and the buttons on your waistcoat, will make two parallel lines up and down with the hand three or four inches from the body. The reins should be clasped, or held by the two lower, or fourth and fifth fingers; the second finger should point straight across and upward enough to keep the near rein over the knuckle of that finger and the thumb pointing in the same direction, but not so much upward. The reins are held, not by squeezing them on their flat surface, but by pressure on their edges. The edges, in a word, being held between the two last fingers and the root of the thumb. This arrangement makes a flexible joint, the wrist, for the reins and for the bit to play upon. This suppleness of the wrist, just enough and not too much, is what is called "hands." It means, that your wrist gives just enough play to the horse's mouth to enable him to feel your influence, without being either confused or hampered by it.

As this is the key to perfection in all driving, everybody claims to possess it; only the elect few have it.

Practically everybody can learn to play the piano or the violin, or to write tolerable verses; only a very few, indeed, ever attain to supreme command over these instruments, or over the music of words. Training and teaching may accomplish much and make fair or even excellent performers; but beyond that it is divine grace, born not made, given not attained. The same is true of driving: you may be one of the elect, but if you are, you belong to a society as small as that of the Knights of the Garter, and you need not be vain, since it was no hard work of yours, but an endowment. It is a combination of physical and mental traits, a quickness of connection between nerve and brain and muscle, that may be cultivated and improved in all men, but which reaches perfection only in the few. Corbett, in "An Old Coachman's Chatter," says, "Even for a good amateur to acquire professional style requires two years averaging eighty miles a day, with a fair amount of night work."

A persistent man may do much. He may learn to write excellent verse, with no hope of ever being a poet; he may learn to jump higher than the average, without the slightest prospect of doing six feet, six and a half inches, which thus far has only been done by one man in the world; he may learn to run, or swim, or speak, but the heights of the unexcelled are not for him. This much ought to be said about driving at the start. You may read books from now till doomsday, and you may practise, and you will undoubtedly become an excellent and trustworthy coachman, far above the average,—not a difficult attainment, by the way,—but to have this magic of "hands" is not, I believe, attainable except to those endowed physically and mentally with peculiar powers, in peculiar combination. It is because everybody thinks he knows how to drive, simply because he can steer quadrupeds with steel in their mouths, that this point is emphasized. No one need neglect this sport on the ground that the vision and the attainment are limited; they are not, and to most men even confident competence is denied, not to speak of this virtuosity of hands.

Now that you are in your seat with the reins as they should be, between the thumb and second and between the third and fourth fingers of your left hand, wrist properly bent, and in a sufficiently humble and docile state of mind, you should notice why the reins are separated by two fingers instead of one, and why the near rein is kept so far as possible over the knuckle of the second finger. Just as the wrist makes play backward and forward, so this separation of the reins enables you to make play sideways or across the horse's mouth. By turning your hand toward you, so that the knuckles, instead of facing the horse, face the sky, you shorten that upper rein, the near rein, and your horse goes over to the left, or near side. By turning your hand just the other way and bringing it across to the left hip, you shorten the off rein and turn your horse to the right. All done with one hand, you still have the other for your whip, to render any assistance needed. There are scores of times when to steer your horse, and still to have the right hand free, means not merely convenience, but safety.

It is a peculiarity of driving that it is almost the one sport in which the sportsman is the custodian of, and responsible for, other people. A man rides, shoots, and does other dangerous things alone, but nine times out of ten he drives with others alongside of him. It is doubly necessary, therefore, that he should know his business thoroughly, and, if he is to make a practice of driving others, that he should spare no pains to know all that he can.

The fact that the left hand is held as directed keeps the reins secure, and keeps them secure with the least possible exertion. As this position of the hand, wrist, and fingers is a little awkward at first to the beginner, most driving is done with the wrist not held across the body, but pointing toward the horse, with the thumb held over the reins as a sort of clip and pointing also toward the horse. The reins held in this fashion are of necessity insecure and forever slipping forward, and there is no leverage of wrist for the horse's mouth, but a straight pull from an outstretched arm.

One often hears the comment that one cannot as easily hold a horse this way as with the reins, say in both hands. That is exactly the secret of it. It is just so that you cannot keep a dead pull on the poor brute's mouth that this position is the ideal one. You don't want to pull your horse, but to drive him. Most driving, by the way, seems to have as its central feature how to stop him, rather than how to make him go pleasantly; how to get the quickest and sharpest jerk on his mouth in case of trouble, rather than how to exert the least possible pressure that will command obedience. With a well-bitted horse, you should be able to make figure eights by moving the left hand as directed without touching the reins with the right hand at all. The position of the hired coachman on the box of a Victoria or brougham these days is a ludicrous one for the reason that most of them, and evidently their masters, know nothing of the reason for that position. It was intended by balancing the coachman thus to prevent his putting great weight on the reins, as he might do if his feet and legs stuck out in front of him and his hands were held at arm's length. It is well and proper that he should be balanced on his seat with his back hollowed in, his elbows at his side, his hand across and in front of him; but tucking his legs and feet back and way underneath him defeats the whole plan by forcing him to hold on by the reins, which is just what it was hoped to avoid. His feet and legs, as in the case of the gentleman coachman, should be at such an angle in front of him that he has a perfectly easy balance and something to brace against in case he needs to exert extra power. On a lady's light Victoria, with nothing but the narrow foot-board in front of him, a coachman in this new-fangled position is not only a figure of fun, but he is also in grave danger of accident. This monkey-on-a-stick attitude is a blundering misinterpretation of a perfectly sensible rule.

So far as the amateur coachman is concerned, he should sit straight, with his back so hollowed that he can balance easily on his hips, not on the edge of, but on the cushion, with his feet and legs at a comfortable angle, and without that look of going out after the reins one so often sees—a care-worn, bent-over position, as though the reins were sliding away, never to reappear.

Start out moderately, keep your horse at an even pace, and come in toward the end of your journey again at a moderate pace. A horse is not saved by doing ten miles in two hours instead of one. On the contrary, it takes less out of a horse to make him do his journey at a smart gait rather than to dawdle. You may have noticed yourself that a brisk two hours' walk takes far less out of you than the standing around, the stopping and starting, and the general dawdling of two hours' shopping. Here again the size of the horse's stomach should help to solve the problem of how fast and how far. It is better that he should do his task at a brisk pace and get back to his rub down, his meal, and his rest, than that he should be jogged for a long time at a stretch. Even when it is necessary to keep him going and to keep him away from his stable for an undue number of hours, which must sometimes happen, he should be given a short rest and a small meal of soft food; this will make all the difference between over fatigue that may result seriously, and fatigue easily cured by proper rest. A horse worked at regular hours, and regularly and properly fed, is three-quarters of the way toward being and keeping in good condition.

Just as he should be started quietly, so he should be stopped quietly. It is not the mark of good driving to bring your one horse, or your team, up to the stopping-place at a quick pace, and then to pull up with a jerk—the horse's head in the air, his mouth open because he has been jabbed by the bit, the shafts pointing up, the breeching tight, and the horse almost on his haunches. This kind of stopping takes more out of a horse than a mile of hard work. Begin to stop some time before you stop. Shorten your reins, decrease your pace, and whether it is driving in the traffic of the street or at your own door, slow up gradually. You can tell with certainty whether a man knows his business by the way he starts and stops. If you have stopped as you should, the horse is not sitting in the breeching, with his collar sliding toward the top of his head; but horse and vehicle are stopped, and yet the horse and the vehicle and harness are all in position to go on again without a jerk. This is of the utmost importance in driving in the city streets, where you may find yourself in serious trouble if, through inattention, you have driven well into trouble, before planning to stop. Your horse's nose, or your pole, has poked into another horse or vehicle, or you are obliged to pull up so suddenly that you throw your horse, or horses down.

In America, where we turn to the right, pull well over to your own side and slow down before you get to the street corner around which you wish to go, whether to the right or left. Leave ample room for another vehicle to pass, even though you should meet just at the turn. Many horses, awkwardly enough, get their legs crossed when turning, and on slippery pavements, where the pull up and the pull round come at the same time, a horse is very apt to stumble, and even to fall. Because you have turned many corners without accident is no reason for not taking pains. Many young coachmen escape perils through sheer ignorance, but persistence in error and inattention bring their punishment sooner or later, and the horse skins his knees, or slides under the shafts in a crowd, or kicks and hammers harness and trap to bits. It is too late then to remember to keep an eye out for what is going on ahead of you, to turn corners carefully, and to slacken speed gradually, and not all at once.

It is a safe rule in turning a corner to turn only when the hub of your front wheel has reached the line that the curb would make if prolonged, then there is no danger of running on to or against the corner itself. Even when turning a corner to the right, and you are close to the curb, this rule, if obeyed, will keep both front and back wheels clear. If this is not done, the back wheel, and sometimes both, go rubbing around the curbstone, which, aside from the slovenliness of the performance, is damaging to the wheel, and racking to every bolt in the carriage. If in the country, where often a large stone marks the angle of the turn, to hit this stone or to go over it is often to go over altogether.

The safest and quickest way to shorten the reins, when it must be done in a pinch, is to pull them through from behind. If there are two reins, grasp them between the thumb and second finger of the right hand, open the fingers of the left hand enough to let them run through, shorten them to the required length, and take your grip on them again, with the fingers of the left hand. Every man finds, now and then, either through the foolish driving of some one else, or through unavoidable accident, that he must shorten his reins quickly, and without risk of dropping one. Under those circumstances the best way is to pull them through from behind, though such exigencies occur but seldom with a careful driver. Under ordinary circumstances the best and gentlest way is to place the right hand on the reins, in front of the left, with thumb and finger over near rein and last three fingers over off rein, and slide the left up the reins the required distance. Here again it is the mark of the careful driver that he never seems to be obliged to do things in a hurry. When it is necessary to stop, he has already shortened up his reins, and is ready to stop. When it is necessary to turn a corner, he has already advised his horse by giving him the office, and the corner is negotiated with scarcely the movement of the hands. When it is time to start, the horse seems to have been informed via the reins and bit, and off he goes without a jerk. In passing other vehicles from behind, pass to their left. Do not pass at all unless you are going at a quicker pace, and propose to maintain it. To turn short across another man's horse, and then go on at the same pace he is going, is the veriest and vulgarest rudeness. The only excuse for passing is that you are making faster time than he is, and that you propose to keep it up.

Drive with one hand. In the show ring, where horses must show pace in a small ring, use the right hand on the off rein. It gives better control, and keeps the horse steadier. Keep the right hand cautiously near, that you may use it to shorten the reins, to steady the horse, or to add force when the left hand is not sufficient. Carry your whip pointing upwards, and slightly to the left, say toward the left ear of your horse, in driving one. Start slowly, drive at the same pace, once you are started; it saves the horse, and is far more agreeable to the passengers. Pull up gradually. Turn corners slowly, and do not start to turn too soon. Be continuously careful to keep your horse's mouth fresh, by giving and taking between your hand and his mouth, with just enough pressure to keep him informed that you are behind him, and no more. If you hang on to his mouth, be sure that he will end by pulling your arms out. If you use the whip on him, do not tap him continually, or flick him, here and there, from time to time, out of sheer idleness and inconsequence; but if you use it, do it so that the horse knows it is punishment and not play; otherwise you waste the benefit to be derived from the whip, by accustoming the horse to think that in your use of the whip you are merely playing with him. Above all, keep a good lookout ahead, and if you have a horse that is worth driving at all, you may be sure that it is also worth your while to keep an eye on him all the time.