Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Tandem...

I love this reproduction page out of a newsprint. It has so many wonderful sketches.. of both riding aside and astride, but what I want you to focus on in right in the center, where the rider is riding his horse, but long lining another - which is called riding Tandem.




















Well, now look at this! Riding Tandem and Sidesaddle at the walk!


















Oh be still my heart - here we have Sidesaddle, Tandem at the canter.. and look at the amazing riding suit!
















OHHHHH - (squeeling!!) One handed!!!


















I have died and gone to heaven... Tandem with 2 horses!!!!(although I don't think this is sidesaddle) OH MY Gosh!! It just does not get any better than this!

8 comments:

Kaede said...

I believe with three horses it is call a random. The Prince Regent (George the IV)made it popular.

Riding or driving tandem was used in field hunting to you could have two horses in the field. One for now and one for when the first hunter got tired. It was a way to show off how well you could drive. Nothing is keeping the front horse from flipping around and facing you but your skill.

Most folks just had one of their grooms ride the extra horse. After all, the groom would have to ride the extra horse (quite well so the horse would arrive fresh) to keep up with the hunt so as to be able to exchange horses with the owner.

Lots of male grooms had to learn to ride aside so their ladies horses would be at the hunt.

Kaede said...

Miss spelled Randem

Here is a photo

Unknown said...

I've driven tandem... once! It was HARD, much harder than driving the unicorn hitch (two on the wheels, one up front). I saw a demonstration of riding tandem once at Equine Affaire though, they even jumped, it was very impressive.

SmartAlex said...

Yep, it's called "randem". Good luck with that!

One of my favorite horse stories is "Highboy Rings Down the Curtain" about a tandem team. You can find it in pdf format on Google books.

And I've been rereading one of my favorite novels "The Bolinvars" and have been learning some interesting terminology and practices. For instance, a "cockhorse" was an extra horse added on to a team to pull them out (vintage tow truck). Coaches would keep a cockhorse harness in the boot, in case someone came along with a spare they could hook up.

Unknown said...

I drive tandem. Also three horses is randem.
Thats really neat.

panavia999 said...

Love those photos!
I also enjoy "Highboy Rings Down the Curtain". As a kid I got a book of horse stories "Great Horse Stories" edited by Page Cooper, illustrated by Paul Brown. It included Kipling's "The Maltese Cat", "Highboy" "A Grand Filly" by Somerville & Ross, "It Happened at Aintree", Tolstoys "Strider". It's still my favorite anthology of equine writing. Although I first read it as a child, it is an adult book. Highly recommended and available from abebooks.com

Fantastyk Voyager said...

that is so cool! They look lovely. And I learned a new word today- randem.

Janice Grinyer said...

the connection involved. wow.

Thank you ladies for your comments ~ not only am i learning from Julie, but from all of you also!