Granada Holmes just got off his horse BACKWARDS
like, SWUNG HIS LEG OVER THE HORSE’S NECK INSTEAD OF ITS HINDQUARTERS
WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT
like was that actually a thing in 19th-century England? (and if so, IN GOD’S NAME WHY?) Did they have him do it just for the sake of eccentricity?
I’m…
Simple answer: Sherlock is a city-boy. BIG TIME.
But that’s the thing. He’s riding fairly well. He knows what he’s doing enough to notice when his horse goes lame (which didn’t stop him from riding it fairly hard anyway—I’m choosing to chalk that up to a child’s life being in danger, but still, Sherly, not good), he knows how to pick up its foot in the proper way to examine it, he knows enough about horseshoeing to notice that it’s an old shoe with new nails and to realize that that’s odd.
And all that doesn’t change the fact that it’s just obviously way more difficult to get off that way than to get off the normal way, which is just the way you got on, but backwards. Even if you’d only gotten on a horse once or twice in your life before (which: if that’s the case, I doubt you’re taking a horse over rough country with few defined trails at a canter?), wouldn’t it be the more natural thing to just reverse the process you used to get on?
I AM AWARE THAT I AM MAKING TOO MUCH OF THIS BUT IT BOTHERS ME SO MUCH
He’s not a city boy, though. Remember, his parents were rural gentry. Growing up in the 1800s countryside, of COURSE he learned how to ride a horse or he’d never have been able to get anywhere.
I think it’s just that:
1: He’s a bit batshit and
2: he’s lucky that’s a well-trained horse.