Bars and Strikes

Lamentably enough, important wars are no longer fought on horseback. Cavalry no longer rides, carrying flags, through forests at night, or gallops, in a wind of fluttering colors, to an engagement as beautiful as a game. Cavalry is still important as a scouting service. but it rides furtively, on horses sometimes painted for concealment.

Traditions last long in the army however. In peacetimes soldiers take as much pride in good horsemanship as though they would ride to the next war on their horses.

Last week in Manhattan the National Horse Show was celebrated (see p. 36); in it, the most spectacular events were those in which Army officers from Poland, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Canada, and the U. S. competed against each other. The idea was to determine which one had the best horses and riders; the means of deciding was to have each team ride its mounts around the ring, over jumps. If a horse knocked off the top-bar of a fence (a grave fault), it counted points against him; if he touched it with a lagging hoof (a minor fault) perhaps a half-point was scored against him.

The U. S. Army team won the largest number of individual prizes but was beaten by Germany for the really important award, the so-called International Military Trophy, which Poland won in 1926 and 1927.

In the competition for the International Military Trophy 18 riders, three for each team, rode 18 horses around the ring. A last minute shift in the U. S. line-up caused 12-year-old Buckaroo, who had hitherto been the best jumper in the show, to be withdrawn for Miss America, who is sometimes better than Buckaroo and sometimes not nearly so good. On this occasion, she was probably not as good as the old horse would have been; she made three faults on one circuit of the ring and the German team won the event with nine faults; Poland and the U. S. tied for second with 9 1/2. In the jump-off for undisputed second place the U. S. won.

One only of the 18 accomplished a "clean performance." This was Major Harry D. Chamberlain who is the son of an Army man; an instructor in the Fort Riley, Kan., military school; about 35; nervous when he is not sitting on a horse. On Dick Waring he took every fence, the little one at the start and the long jump near the the end, without knocking down or touching any bar of any one.