Those of us who are not horsemen or women might be surprised at the savage looking nature of this item. It could surely inflict a huge amount of pain to any victim who was whipped. But of course, cruelty was never the best way to get an animal to work for you. Sparing the whip may have been said to spoil the child, but it made for a much more biddable horse.
Riding crop/horsewhip used by Stuart Reynolds of Clyffe Hall, Market Lavington
This item is described as a combined riding crop and whip. A crop is usually a stick (often fibre glass these days) with some feathered leather at the end. Riders use them to back up other prompts they can give to a horse offering them a gentle tap of encouragement. The whip was more often a ground level training device. Many people, old enough to remember when circuses had animals, will recall ringmasters cracking a whip to encourage animals. It was the noise that did it.
This particular device has a carved horn handle.
The horn handle on the riding crop
It dates, probably, from the 1950s and was used by Mr Stuart Reynolds of Clyffe Hall.
Market Lavington Museum 