GOOD ADVICE BY THE ENGLISH JOCBEY, CANNON.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XII, Issue 724, 21 January 1904, Page 10

GOOD ADVICE BY THE ENGLISH JOCBEY, CANNON.

Writing recently about his early experiences in the saddle Mornington Cannon, the celebrated English horseman, tells that he was riding for a good while in public before he was allowed to carry a whip or wear spurs. And quite right, f too. When little,boys are beginning to wear silk it would be all the better for both themselves and their mounts if they were not given any “instruments of torture” at all. They cannot be expected to know! how to use them. To me nothing looks so pitiful on a racehorse as a “nipper,” who has only -ust learned to sit on properly, making an attempt to bring the whip into play (writes “Reginald”). In such inexperienced hands the “flail” must be rather a detriment to the unfortunate horse concerned. Boys getting an idea of the business would, like Cannon, be far better employed in managing the reins properly, instead of endangering their own and others’ lives and limbs by their frantic astempts to get the “mop” going. And, after all, it is very rarely that the whip really wins a race. But in this country trainers dare not instruct their apprentices to keep their hands down, for there is a regulation in the V.R.C. rules which says that horses must be ridden out, which, according to the Australian version, means whip flourishing and all the rest of it. Was ever such an absurd rule heard of in any part of the world but this i? It is beyond all reason. Why should not a rider be justified in easing up when he finds his mount beaten under him, instead of using pressure on an animal that has already done his best. Of course, the rule does not go so far aS to say that the stewards expect to see skin and hair fly ; but this is what can always be looked for when you put the whip in the hands of helpless kiddies who do not know how it should be used. The proper way to teach our boys to ride is to follow the plan adopted in the case of Mornington Cannon—that is, leave the whip, and the spurs, too, for that matter, at home until the novice has been educated in the proper use of such things. ________