Children who have courage may be taught to ride a horse

Children who have courage may be taught to ride a horse

Children who have courage may be taught to ride a horse

Children who have courage may be taught to ride almost as soon as they can walk. On the Pampas of South America you may see a boy seven years old on horseback, driving a herd of horses, and carrying a baby in his arms!

I began my own lessons at four, when I sat upon an old mare in the stall while the groom polished harness or blacked his boots. Mr. Nathaniel Gould, who, at upwards of seventy years, and sixteen stone weight, can still ride hunting for seven or eight hours at a stretch, mentions, in his observations on horses and hunting, that a nephew of his followed the Cheshire fox-hounds at seven years of age. His manner of gathering up his reins was most singular, and his power of keeping his seat, with his little legs stretched horizontally along the saddle, quite surprising. The hero Havelock, writing to his little boy, says, You are now seven years old, and ought to learn to ride. I hope to hear soon that you have made progress in that important part of your education. Your uncle William (a boy-hero in the Peninsula) rode well before he was seven years old. The proper commencement for a boy is a pony in which he can interest himself, and on which he may learn to sit as a horseman should.