Toby, gallant horse friend

I had a horse that looked a lot like this one when I was small, but it was white with a black mane and tail. It's name was Toby. I think my parents actually still have it-- in the basement and broken (it never even existed for Dennis-- Will had been kind of a rough-rider). Toby bounced on springs, and as you bounced faster his trotting noise became faster, graduating eventually to a galloping noise until some mechanism in the horse determined that the threshold at which faster bouncing could no longer occur had been reached-- at which point Toby would whinny and my parents usually told us to give it a rest. It makes me remember this song my grandparents and parents used to sing to us while bouncing us on their laps-- a song totally chocked full of all sorts of gender and class polemics. But whatevs-- it was fun.

This is the way the country folk ride,
the country folk ride, the country folk ride
This is the way the country folk ride,
Hobblety, hobblety, ho.

This is the way the Ladies ride,
the Ladies ride, the Ladies ride,
this is the way the Ladies ride,
Trot, trot, trot.

And, this is the way the Gentlemen ride
the Gentlemen ride, the Gentlemen ride
this is the way the Gentlemen ride,
Gallopy, gallopy, go.