Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-11-30
Joaquin Miller on How to Ride
and Manage the Horse.
H erO of Many Great Horseback Ride
Gives His Impressions to the
Public-Modern Mistakes.
The Best Teacher Is the Horsa Him'nlf-W When
Horse is ut His Best-The saddle.
The English as Riders.
copyrighted 1890 by the Author.)

| fOf the GaZelte.
His neck is clothed with thunder"
! 1.-THE speed OF though. is in his limos. ~
and all that sort of thing. But outside
of his neck and his legs, If you lay aside
the romance ard the poetry that gather
| about this most glorious animal on earth i,
not even excepting mau, the horse i
simply an infant in arms; or, ut best
| be Ia but a small boy standing alone in
the twilight, with his mind stored full OF
! bugaboo stories, and ready TO run away
| ut the slightest strange sight or sound .
| Fhe horse is a mental bankrupt.
II l could only impress this fact firmly
| on all tyros who take il into their heads
! to handle horses, L could save many q
| limb, and, indeed, many life every
| year.
But the trouble is every one has read {,
more or less, about 'the snsa"ity OF tine
horse" has looked on pictures of horses
III battle, in every one of which the
horse has his head TO the foe; his neck is.
indeed, "cluthed with thunder 'he
hears the captains and the shoutines,
and he cries, ha, ha!'' The horses that
run away i'll battle. that run away OH
| every possible occasion-in fact, till they
eau no longer use their legs TO advan-
tage, are not set down either in the pic
lures or the prints. And so il Is that the
man or The woman who takes a fancy 10
handle horses begins with the horses seen
in the galleries or in books of poetry and
romance. The result is disgust and dis
trust; broken ideals, il not broken
bones.
We have here in California, ut least
30 the race records prove, the fieetest is
well as the finest horses on the giohe.
And OF course these finest horses are
owned 10y the finest horsemeu. In fact,
] never saw any man or woman Oh the
other side of the Mississippi who could
really ride.
But we handle the horses which We
find in the fields and stable out here;
not the horses which are to be found on
walls and in books; 'such as never were
on sea or land
The sudden revival Of horseback prac-
tice in America almost cOmpels me TO
say some very plain things about the
friend aud companion of all the yeurs of
my life. Only 10 think that fifteen
years ago l often rode the entire br'dle-
path of Central Park without seeing a
single saddle horse; and yet last sum-
mer, when on visit to New York,
new fancy for the noblest diversion
would not induce me to write of the
horse and his master, for my both hands
are more than busy with other work, if
men who know nothing about horses
would only let the subject alone. But
it is these men who know nothing, il
seems to me, that say everything.
For example, one man said TO be quite
au authority, too, says: "Hold on TO
your horse by the knees; never let day
light be seen between your knees aud
your horse.
Now, if little dot of child that IS
Just beginning TO walk by pushing q
chair around should write book on Pc
destrian exercise, l recken it would be
pretty certain to say: "Hold on to your
chair. Gentlemen, you should never
let any daylight be seen between your
knees aud your chair!'
And SO, of course, ! find no serious
faul; with this teacher of equestranism
who insists on hanging on to his horse by
the knee; only he should have told'us he
had attained to no higher degree of per-
lection than that of the little dot that
holds on TO the chair.
81 made my generals out of mud. -
said Napoleon the Great. And he should
have added that he always used great
care in selecting his mud. For he al
ways chose not only his generals. but
his bosom friends from men who were
masters of the horse. Think of that 700
miles ride from Madrid to say Zen words
10 Prince Metternich of Austria! And
we read that Caesar rode 100 miles and
then fought and w,n a great battle GU
the same day! my son, such king
RI he no
SAID Philip, as the young conquerer Of
orld leaped to the ground from horse
which no other man in Greece had the
address to back.
And now these three great examples
of these three greatest men in the trade
of arms bring me to the utteranoe OF the
first great fact in connection with the
mastery OF the horse. 1t is this: The
horse feels you. You may seem to be
meyer so composed he may not be able
10 see any sign of fear or apprehension,
or even doubt Of your power aud mastery
over him. But the moment he Is in
your atmospheric known not what
else to coll it than atmOsphere-he knows
you through aud through. If you are
afraid, he knows it; and he is also
afraid.
Don't let horse know you are
afraid of him; II you do. ne will take
advantage of you, and surely throw you
of or run away Thus writes another
able slanderer OF this much misuuder-
stood and, therefore, much abused
brute.
Now the truth Is, the horse will not
wilfully take advantage of any one or OF
anything under any circumstances. But,
to get back where we started In this nr-
tcle. the horse, outside of his grace of
body aud movement, has little else than
his legs and his strength. A mental
bankrupt, and as timid as dove, he is
ready to use his strength and those four
legs OF his the moment that he has lost
faith in you. He needs q master; tor he
has no mind of his own. He must feel
that you are his master, or, at least.
that you are neither coward or fool. Aud
if he does not feel this he becomes
frightened at everything-a falling leaf.
bird by the road. bit of paper, any
thing, everything. He is trembling
with fear, for he knows you are also
afraid And SO, not from any vicious
ness at all, but really because he has no
rider or master, he runs away. Here We
begin to see the ground of Alexander's
greatness, of Caesars strength, and Ma