RIDING WITH SHORT STIRRUPS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19809, 2 December 1927, Page 14

RIDING WITH SHORT STIRRUPS.

Sir, —Allow me to say a word in support of the Rev. Jasper Calder'ti denunciation of the modern craze for riding with short stirrups, a craze which 1 cannot help thinking is scientifically false and artistically atrocious. 1 pretend to no more knowledge or skill than comes to every one who has had a good deal of saddle work over rough country' by " Hood and field." I have ah/ays thought horsemanship a beautiful art, the ideal of which is to hold a line of sovereigns from the seat to the knee, and take a fence without losing a coin. This is no doubt fanciful, brat I have seen some approach made to it with a long stirrup and the legs from the knee downward serving as a balance weight on each side to keep the egqilibrium. I have recollections of a book I read some half century ago, called " The White Slave," in which it was contended that the true school of riding was the Cossack camp with the short stirrup and the "menage"—the academic riding school was condemned. No doubt the " short stirrup" or "grip like a monkey" system has its advantages, but only a gracefullybalanced seat can "witch the world with, noble horsemanship." J. Giles. Mount Eden, December 1, 1927.