RIDING BUCK-JUMPERS.

Timaru Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 6063, 24 September 1894, Page 3

RIDING BUCK-JUMPERS.

. ■ # i mi * Bolf Boldrewood, m a magazine article on Australian roughrideri, says v— As an Australian I may be slightly prejudiced, but I must oonfeis to holding the opinion that our bash riders m certain departments are un< rivalled. The Sonth Amerioan gaucho and the oowboy of the Western States are doubt* less wonderful horsemen. The saddle of the American is of the old- fashioned Spanish pattern, heavy end cumbrous. In addition to the high pommel and caotel, it is provided with a burn-like fixture m front to whioh the lasso is attached generally, but which serves as a sort of belaying pin and an excellent holdfast for tbe rider m case of need. The tremendous severity of the curb bit must also tend to moderate the gambols o£ any but the most vioious animal. The horses, too, are mere ponios compared to the big, powerful Australians, and as such weaker and more easy to oontro). After describing the saddling of an un* broken coit (m a " orush " raoe) the writer says:— "A tall, well-made young man from tha Upper Murray ascends tho fence and stands with either leg on the rails immediately over tho angry, terrified aniniah Deftly ha drops into the saddle, h\e legs just ((razing the sidja of the crash. 'Open the gate !' roars the manager. ' Look out, you boys! 1 and with a mad rush out flies the colt through the opea gate like a shell from a howitzer. For twenty yards fee races at fall »peed, then ' pnppiog,' as if galvanised, shoots upward witk the true deer's lea.p, all fou.r feet m the air at once (from whioh the vioe takes its name), and comet down with his head be. tween his fore-legs and his. nose touohing the girths. But the rider has swayed baok m his saddle with initinotive ease, and is quite prepared for a succession of lightning-like bounds — tideways, upward, dowaw&rd, backweri, as tbe agile and frantic animal appears j to tarn m the air, and to come down with his head m the place where hit tail was when be rose, For an instant he itops j then perhapi

the spurs are sent m, to as to aocentuate tl next performance. The otowd, moanwbil of six or seven hundred people, mostly youi or m the prime of life, follow cheering at dapping with every fresh attempt on the pa of tne frenzied staed to dispose of his rider, few minutes of this exercise suffice to exhsu and steady the wildest colt. Shortly,' wil lowered head and trembling frame, he allot himself to be ridden to the gate of egres There ha is halted, and his rider, taking hoi of hie left ear with his bridle hand, swici lightly to the ground closely alongiide of tl shoulder. Did he not so alight, the agi mustang is capable of a lightning wheel and dangerous kick. The foregoing is a description of riding buckjumper written by an onlooker. Th following by Mr V A Daly, written for tli Queenslander f is from the point of view of tl man m the saddle— and out of it : — They blindfolded the colt and got tne 6 somehow— l don't remember anything dii tinotly, as evtnts were reeled off too quick] by that animal for me to grasp all the detaili I remember they threw the gate open, pulle the bandgae from his eyes, and he made on dart like a fish at a fly for the big yarc where, stopping suddenly, he whesled shot round, whipped his head between his legi tearing all the flesh off my knuoklee againi the pommel of the saddle ; then sprang int the air as though ebot from the muzzle of i mortar, and landed on the hard ground wit! a shook that the gullet plate of my saddl creaked, and the tree cracked, and m teeth snapped like an alligator's, while I full expected te see the colt's shoulder blade come shooting through his skin. As fo myself, I felt as if my back were broken an all my bones jumped out of joint, am wondered, m a dreamy sort of nay, who wa laughing, and what they were laughing al Then up and down went the hone again, m bat flew off, and I fancied my head we about to follow, for if this kind of thin continued mnoh longer, my neok mm inevitably snap like a carrot. In less than n time I had been round the big yard, and i: every corner of it, and had been bumped againt several posts, and was starting for anothe round— and there was no •go as you pleaai about it either. So I began to wieh fo something to happen— anything to break tb awful sameness of this horrible up and dow motion with a jerk that jinked your baok whe you rose, and a shock that made you bit you; tongue when you landed As if m prayer had been heard my hand slipped frot the pummel, whioh I had grasped, the hors felt me bobbing about and redoubled hi efforts ; I fell forward till I oould see th ground m a straight line down from the pom of his withers, for he seemed to have neithe neck nor head, then back wards into the saddle sgaia. After that I can't say for oertaii where I was, whether I was m the saddle o only half m it, or clean behind it ; all I kne» was from the awful bumps Z was getting, am the way the ground reeled out beneath me that I was still on board the bruto somewhere till suddenly I wob sent flying through Bpaoe the ground seemed to jump up to meet mi and arrested my progress with fearful foroe and the colt bucked fairly on top of me, sue I lay there quivering with pain, and thinkinj to myself, ' Well, if this ii Australian bucl '"limp riding better leave it to the natives they like it, I don't. Besides they are bort and bred to it and can stick to a saddle like a porous plaster to a patient'i back.' So I determined to leave rougl riding alone, and gavo buok-jumpere ( wide berth. But the worst of it is you cannol always tell whether you are on a buok»jumpei or not ; but if ever you see a horse suddenly whip his head between his legs, and feel hin bounding under you like sUel springs, with i hump on his baok like a boomerang, and ther all m a momont you Snd youryelf shot againei a trep, or lying helplesily on the ground witl your body full of pains and your mouth ful of blood and dust — then you oan reckon thai you were on a '« real live Australiaa buck jumper>" If no one sees you fall you oan tel your friends that the girth was loose and th< saddle shifted ; only for that, nothing ii oreation, &o, &o, A Fijian Islander finds, no empty keroaeni tin of great use.. &c cuts it m two anc stretcboa oup part so that it overlaps the othei a little, like a lid, and then ties neatly rounc the whole with hemp. This is tiow th< national portmanteau of most of Lhe Weeterr Pacific.