Qualified horses and unqualified riders, or the reverse of sporting phrases taken from the work entitled Indispensable accomplishments.

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The First of Alken's coloured Books, combining humour, sporting culture, and horse-riding satire. Oblong folio, in half morocco over grey cloth (by Riviere & Sons), gilt tooling, gilt titles to morocco label. Spine, raised bands, gilt tooling & titles, rubbed along edges. Internally, engraved title page, followed by seven lively hand coloured plates of hunters and horses and their mishaps, plates dated 1815, & watermarked J Whatman 1819, red marbled endpapers, t.e.g., book labels to fpd ( Charles Cooper Townsend & Charles C Auchincloss). A lovely copy. A rejoinder to Sir Robert Frankland's Indispensable accomplishments, London, 1811. (251*350 mm). (Tooley 44. Schwerdt 1, p. 20. Bobins 747. Not listed in Abbey Life) Plates are: Engraved title page 1. Going along a slapping pace; 2. Topping a flight of Rails 3. Charging an Ox-fence. 4. Got in and getting out. 5. Facing a Brook 6. Swishing at a Rasper, 7. Returning Home in Triumph. Title continues:In looking over that very amusing work call'd Indispensable accomplishments sign'd Billesdon Coplow with which I was very much delighted but could not forbear remarking that he consider'd it only necessary that the horse should come well into the next field, charge and ox fence, go in and out clever, face a brook & swish at a rasper he does not mention that to do all that kind of thing it is necessary he should be mounted by a rider of judgment and courage. I have undertaken beging[sic] his pardon to mount well qualified horses with unqualified riders and to shew the figure those horses are likely to cut during the day. As an early coloured-plate satire of riding culture and horse-sports, it offers modern viewers insight into early 19th-century sporting and social attitudes