The art of riding conteining diuerse necessarie instructions, demonstrations, helps, and corrections apperteining to horssemanship, not herettofore expressed by anie other author: written at large in the Italian toong, by Maister Claudio Corte, a man most excellent in this art. Here brieflie reduced into certeine English discourses to the benefit of gentlemen and others desirous of such knowledge.

CHAP. 4. (Book 4)

How to teach your horsse the manage resembled vnto the letter S: and the commoditie thereof.

ANother kind of manage * 1.1 there is, which may be likened vnto an S: made in this man∣ner. First you shall pase and after trot your horsse as it were in the forme of a ring; but be∣fore you come to close it, you must turne on the contrarie hand, and pressing forward take a lar∣ger compasse; from whence you shall come backe through the middest of the marke readie made, and from thence inlarging returne vpon the same hand you began, till you arriue at the place where you entred: which in the end will prooue the iust proportion of the letter S dou∣bled: which figure ought to be made somewhat long, cheeflie to teach a yoong horsse or igno∣rant colt.

And to the end you may the better conceiue what hath beene said, you must imagine two

wheeles or rings to be put together, and that the said rings were not fullie round, but somewhat longlike vnto an eg, where passing from the one to the other you make one onelie turne vpon one hand. Now when you haue ridden your horsse so long as is conuenient in this manage, you must euer end vpon the same hand you first began. Then going foorth by the same waie, you shall keepe straight, & stop your horsse without the figure, the length of a short manage. But if you please to end within the S it selfe, it will not be amisse, but rather more cunning and sightlie to behold.

The waie so to doo, is to cut the S in the mid∣dest, and at the end of the turne make a straight ring, and from thence passe right foorth to stop at the end of the S, cutting the figure in the mid∣dest, which dooing two or three times in the selfe same path, at the last you must make half a turne and then departout. The forme of this figure may not be longer than a iust manage, nor lon∣ger than foure elns. Also the small rings in the end of the manage, within the S, or without the S, should not be in widenesse much more than one elne.

The commodities proceeding of this ma∣nage * 1.2 are diuerse, and so apparant as need not be

[illustration]

discoursed. Onlie I saie that it may be made at firste large, then straiter and straiter, accordinge vnto the or∣der of the Caragolo: wherby the horsse shal∣be informd how to com into his ma∣nage with the halfe or hole turne, without rest or with cor∣uettes, or in turnes with iumps, that wil haue the grace & fa∣shiō of such a manage.

Notes

• * 1.1

  A descripti∣on of this double S see pag. 16.
• * 1.2

  The com∣modities of the foresaid manage of S S.