The Arizona sentinel., 1889-06-15
CAVALRY RIDING DRILL

An EX-IrOOper IeIS HOW Raw heCrulCS
 Are Put Through Their Faces.
 The first riding lesson usually takes place in the ''riding-school," where, as the floor is covered with "tan," the recruits who come off will fall softly. The military authorities don't want their recruits laid up in hospitals. The lesson consists of leading the horse around the riding-schOol; so that the axiom of learning to creep before walk ing is slightly modified here, for the recruit learns to walk his horse before riding him. When he has led his horse around for awhile, the horses head is brought in from the boards (i. e., the walls of the schOoD, and the recruit is taught to stand at ease" and to step from side to side of his horses fore feet in measured paces. Then comes the ''mount;" and usually the unfortunate recruit has no sooner got up on one side than he rolls over on the other, owing to the vagaries of his horse, who knows that he has a recruit in hand, and takes advantage of it. Presently the order is given to march" and away file the horses 2 around the school walls, many of the pupils thinking horsefesh is very perverse in rubbing its side against the school wall with recruits leg for buffer The day when 1 got my first riding lesson many of us started off by pulling on our horses mouths, and got (to quote our rough rider) 'all over the shop like pack of sheep" After a few turns round during which the trough" taught us the aids to horsem anship in the pre- liminary stages of the ''walk"-we learned that we were not to pull our horses heads off. " but to handle the reins gently by feeling them with our wrists and not with our whole arms. All we had to do (we were told) was to sit there and keep our bodies up- right with our chests forward, by hol- lowing the back and drawing in our stomachs, as well as to keep our ''chins off our stocks" and our heads up. We began to see that learning to ride was no trihing job. When it came to fixing our legs, getting them well back, raising our toes and sinking our heels, we got more to do than we ever bargained for. Your teacher is hard man to please; and I'm sure that by sheer practice recruits at Canterbury have got all their stomachs pressing up against the diaphragms Other wise how do they muster such small waists and such pigeon-like chests? The fact is that lungs, heart, liver, stomach and spleen are all packed together chestwards, like a tin of Australian mutton. Whether nature ever intended such a cramming is a question that the military authorities don't study. Make your men as wooden as possible-never mind nature, is their dictum; and certainly they are listened to. After we had done a little walking around the riding school we got more confidence; and thought, no doubt, that we should like bit of ''trot," just to see what that was like. When it did come to trotting many of us fell off, or nearly fell off, and went hobbling around the school-to quote our rOugh-riding again ''like lot of stuffed dolls riding yer horses from nose to croup." And certainly many of us were more often on our horses withers and launches than on the center of their backs, and we had our arms more often round their necks than holding our reins. The trough" called us to halt, and even here we were at fault. Some of us pulled too much, or we pulled too little, or we pulled awry, with the result that our At last we had stopped, our friend the trough again let us know bit of his mind about our first appearance as cavalrymen. He never saw such blooming lot of asses in all his born days; my old mother could ride better than you, etc. He had probably told the same yarn to generations of re- cruits; but really we believed that we were a set of out-and-out duffers.
 After few months riding drill the cavalryman learns to ride his horse at all paces; and when he can take him through the turns, circles and wind ings Of the menage drill, and knows how to use his ''arps" mounted, he is fit to cali himself real cavalry-man, and is ready to go on and fight his country's wars when he gets the chance. If the reader wants to learn more of cavalry equitatiOn, he had better join. A few months drill will teach him all he will care to learn. London St. James Gazette.