http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39025
Of all the exercises indulged in by men and women, riding is perhaps the most productive of harmless pleasure. The healthful, exhilarating feeling caused by rapid motion through the air, and the sense of power conveyed by the easy gallop of a good horse, tends greatly to moral and physical well-being and satisfaction. Riding improves the temper, the spirits and the appetite; black shadows and morbid fancies disappear from the mental horizon, and wretched indeed must he be who can preserve a gloomy or discontented frame of mind during a fine run in a grass country, or even in a sharp, brisk gallop over turfy downs.