A horse with rider jumping between two trees.Page 138.
Perhaps we find an easy place under a tree, with an overhanging branch, and sidle daintily up to it, bending the body and lowering the head as we creep through,to the admiration of an indiscreet friend on a rash horse who spoils a good hat and utters an evil execration while trying to follow our example. Or it may be, rejoicing to find ourselves on arable land, that actually rides light, and yet carries a scent,
“Solid and tall,The rasping wall”
challenges us a quarter of a mile off to face it or go home, for it offers neither gate nor gap, and seems to meet the sky-line on either side. I do not know whether others are open to the same deception, but to my own eye, a wall appears more, and a hedge less, than its real height at a certain distance off. The former, however, is a most satisfactory leap when skilfully accomplished, and not half so arduous as it looks.
“Have it!” says Valour. “Yes, but very slow,” replies Discretion. And, sure enough, we calm the free generous horse into a trot, causing him to put his very nose over the obstacle before taking off; when bucking into the air, like a deer, he leaves it behind him with little more effort than a girl puts to her skipping-rope. The height an experienced wall-jumper will clear seems scarcely credible. A fence of this description, which measurement proves to be fully six feet, was jumped by the well-known Colonel Miles three or four years agoin the Badminton country without displacing a stone, and although the rider’s consummate horsemanship afforded every chance of success, great credit is due to the good hunter that could make such an effort with so heavy a man on its back.
The knack of wall-jumping, however, is soon learned even by the most inexperienced animals, and I may here observe that I have often been surprised at the discretion shown by young horses, when ridden close to hounds, in negotiating fences requiring sagacity and common sense. I am aware that my opinion is singular, and I only give it as the result, perhaps exceptional, of my own limited experience; but I must admit that I have been carried by a pupil, on his first day, over awkward places, up and down banks, in and out of ravines, or under trees, with a docility and circumspection I have looked for from the veterans in vain. Perhaps the old horse knows me as well as I know him, and thinks also that he knows best. I am bound to say he never fails me when I trust him, but he likes his head let alone, and insists on having it all his own way. When his blood is really up, and the hero of a hundred fights considers it worth while to put forth his strength, I am persuaded he is even bolder than his junior.
Not only at the fences, however, do we requirediscretion. There is a right way and a wrong of traversing every acre of ground that lies between them. On the grass, we must avoid crossing high ridge-and-furrow in a direct line; rather let us take it obliquely, or, if the field be not too large, go all the way round by the headland. For an unaccustomed horse there is nothing so trying as those up-and-down efforts, that resemble the lurches of a boat in a heavy sea. A very true-shaped animal will learn to glide smoothly over them after a season or two, but these inequalities of surface must always be a tax on wind and muscular powers at best. The easiest goer in ridge-and-furrow that we have yet seen is a fox. Surely no other quadruped has nature gifted with so much strength and symmetry in so small a compass.
Amongst the ploughs, though the fences are happily easier, forethought and consideration are even more required for ground. After much rain, do not enter a turnip-field if you can help it, the large, frequent roots loosen the soil, and your horse will go in up to his hocks; young wheat also it is well to avoid, if only for reasons purely selfish; but on the fallows, when you find awetfurrow, lying the right way, put on steam, splash boldly ahead, and never leave it so long as it serves you in your line. The same may be saidof a foot-path, even though its guidance should entail the jumping of half-a-dozen stiles. Sound foothold reduces the size of any leap, and while you are travelling easily above the ground, the rest of the chase, fox and hounds too, as well as horses, though in a less degree, are labouring through the mire.
When your course is intersected by narrow water-cuts, for purposes of irrigation, by covered drains, or deep, grass-grown cart-ruts, it will be well to traverse them obliquely, so that, if they catch the stride of his gallop, your horse may only get one foot in at a time. He will then right himself with a flounder, whereas, if held by both legs, either before or behind, the result is a rattling fall, very dangerous to his back in the one case, and to your own neck in the other.
Valour of course insists that a hunter should do what he is bid, but there are some situations in which the beast’s discretion pleads reasonably enough for some forbearance from its master. If a good horse, thoroughly experienced in the exigencies of the sport, that you have ridden a season or two, and flatter yourself you understand, persistently refuses a fence, depend upon it there is sufficient reason. The animal may be lame from an injury just received, may have displaced a joint, broken a tendon, or even rupturedan artery. Perhaps it is so blown as to feel it must fall in the effort you require. At any rate do not persevere. Horses have been killed, and men also, through a sentiment of sheer obstinacy that would not be denied, and humanity should at least think shame to be out-done in discretion by the brute. A horse is a wise creature enough, or he could never carry us pleasantly to hounds. An old friend of mine used to say: “People talk about size and shape, shoulders, quarters, blood, bone, and muscle, but for my part, give me a hunter with brains. He has to take care of the biggest fool of the two, and think for both!”
Discretion, then, is one of the most valuable qualities for an animal charged with such heavy responsibilities, that bears us happy and triumphant during the day, and brings us safe home at night. Who would grudge a journey across St. George’s Channel to find this desirable quality in its highest perfection at Ballinasloe or Cahirmee? for indeed it is not too much to say that whatever we may think of her natives, the most discreet and sagacious of our hunters come over from the Emerald Isle.
“An’niver laid an iron to the sod!” was a metaphor I once heard used by an excellent fellow from Limerick, to convey the brilliant manner in which a certain four-year-old he was describing performed during a burst, when, his owner told me, he went clean away from all rivals in his gallop, and flew every wall, bank, and ditch, in his stride.
The expression, translated into English, would seem to imply that he neither perched on the grass-grown banks, with all four feet at once, like a cat, nor struck back at them with his hind legs, like a dog; and perhaps my friend made the more account of this hazardous style of jumping, that it seemed so foreign to the usual characteristics of the Irish horse.
For those who have never hunted in Ireland, I must explain that the country as a general rule is fenced on a primitive system, requiring little expenditure of capital beyond the labour of a man, or, as he is there called, “a boy,” with a short pipe in his mouth and a spade in his hand. This light-hearted operative, gay, generous, reckless, high-spirited, and by no means a free worker, simply throws a bank up with the soil that he scoops out of the ditch, reversing the process, and filling the latter by levelling the former, when a passage is required for carts, or cattle, from one inclosure to the next. I ought nevertheless to observe, that many landlords, with a munificence for which I am at a loss to account, go to the expense of erecting massive pillars of stone, ostensibly gate-posts, at commanding points, between which supports, however, they seldom seem to hang a gate, though it is but justice to admit that when they do, the article is usually of iron, very high, very heavy, and fastened with a strong padlock, though its object seems less apparent, when we detect within convenient distance on either side a gap through which one might safely drive a gig.
It is obvious, then, that this kind of fence, at its widest and deepest, requires considerable activity as well as circumspection on a horse’s part, and forbearancein handling on that of a rider. The animal must gather itself to spring like a goat, on the crest of the eminence it has to surmount, with perfect liberty of head and neck, for the climb, and subsequent effort, that may, or may not be demanded. Neither man nor beast can foresee what is prepared for them on the landing side, and a clever Irish hunter brings itself up short in an instant, should the gulf be too formidable for its powers, balancing on the brink, to look for a better spot, or even leaping back again into the field from which it came.
That the Irishman rides with a light bridle and lets it very much alone is the necessary result. His pace at the fences must be slow, because it is not a horse’s nature, however rash, to rush at a place like the side of a house; and instinct prompts the animal to collect itself without restraint from a rider’s hand, while any interference during the second and downward spring would only tend to pull it back into the chasm it is doing its best to clear.
The efforts by which an Irish hunter surmounts these national impediments is like that of a hound jumping a wall. The horse leaps to the top with fore-and-hind feet together, where it dwells, almost imperceptibly, while shifting the purchase, or “changing,” as the nativescall it, in the shortest possible stride, of a few inches at most, to make the second spring. Every good English hunter will strike back with his hind legs when surprised into sudden exertion, but only a proficient bred, or at least, taught in the sister island, can master the feat described above in such artistic form as leads one to believe that, like Pegasus, the creature has wings at every heel. No man who has followed hounds in Meath, Kilkenny, or Kildare will ever forget the first time, when, to use the vernacular of those delightful countries, he rode “an accomplished hunter over an intricate lep!”
But the merit is not heaven-born. On the contrary, it seems the result of patient and judicious tuition, called by Irish breakers “training,” in which they show much knowledge of character and sound common sense.
In some counties, such as Roscommon and Connemara, the brood mare indeed, with the foal at her foot, runs wild over extensive districts, and, finding no gates against which to lean, leaps leisurely from pasture to pasture, pausing, perhaps, in her transit to crop the sweeter herbage from some bank on which she is perched. Where mamma goes her little one dutifully follows, imitating the maternal motions, and as acharming mother almost always has a charming daughter, so, from its earliest foalhood, the future hunter acquires an activity, courage, and sagacity that shall hereafter become the admiration of crowded hunting-fields in the land of the Saxon far, far away!
But whereas in many parts of Ireland improved agriculture denies space for the unrestrained vagaries of these early lessons, a judicious system is adopted that substitutes artificial education for that of nature. “It is wonderful we don’t get more falls,” said one of the boldest and best of lady riders, who during many seasons followed the pilotage of Jem Mason, and but for failing eye-sight, could sometimes have gone before him, “when we consider that we all ride half-broken horses,” and, no doubt, on our side of the Channel, the observation contained a great deal of truth. But in this respect our neighbours show more wisdom. They seldom bring a pupil into the hunting-field till the elementary discipline has been gone through that teaches him when he comes to his fencewhat to do with it. He may be three, he may be four. I have seen a sportsman in Kilkenny so unassumingly equipped that instead of boots he wore wisps of straw called, I believe, “sooghauns” go in front for a quarter of an hour on a two-year old! Whatever his age,the colt shows himself an experienced hunter when it is necessary to leap. Not yetmouthed, with unformed paces and wandering action, he may seem the merest baby on the road or across a field, but no veteran can be wiser or steadier when he comes within distance of it, or, as his owner would say, when he “challenges” his leap, and this enthusiast hardly over-states the truth in affirming that his pupil “would change on the edge of a razor, and never let ye know he was off the Queen’s high-road, God bless her, all the time!”
The Irishman, like the Arab, seems to possess a natural insight into the character of a horse; with many shortcomings as grooms, not the least of which are want of neatness in stable-management, and rooted dislike to hard work, except by fits and starts, they cherish extraordinary affection for their charges, and certainly in their dealings with them obviously prefer kindness to coercion. I do not think they always understand feeding judiciously, and many of them have much to learn about getting horses into condition; but they are unrivalled in teaching them to jump.
Though seldom practised, there is no better system in all undertakings than “to begin with the beginning,” and an Irish horse-breaker is so persuaded of this great elementary truth that he never asks the colt to attemptthree feet till it has become thoroughly master of two. With a cavesson rein, a handful of oats, and a few yards of waste ground behind the potato-ground or the pig-styes, he will, by dint of skill and patience, turn the most blundering neophyte into an expert and stylish fencer in about six weeks. As he widens the ditch of his earthwork, he necessarily heightens its bank, which his simple tools, the spade and the pipe, soon raise to six or seven feet. When the young one has learned to surmount this temperately, but with courage, to change on the top, and deliver itself handsomely, with the requisite fling and freedom, on the far side, he considers it sufficiently advanced to take into the fields, where he leads it forthwith, leaving behind him the spade, but holding fast to the corn, the cavesson, and the pipe. Here he soon teaches his colt to wait, quietly grazing, or staring about, while he climbs the fence he intends it to jump, and almost before the long rein can be tightened it follows like a dog, to poke its nose in his hand for the few grains of oats it expects as a reward.
Some breakers drive their pupils from behind, with reins, pulling them up when they have accomplished the leap; but this is not so good a plan as necessitating the use of the whip, and having, moreover, a furtherdisadvantage in accustoming the colt to stop dead short on landing, a habit productive hereafter of inconvenience to a loose rider taken unawares!
When he has taught his horse thus towalkover a country, for two or three miles on end, the breaker considers it, with reason, thoroughly trained for leaping, and has no hesitation however low its condition, in riding it out with the hounds. Who that has hunted in Ireland but can recall the interest, and indeed amusement, with which he has watched some mere baby, strangely tackled and uncouthly equipped, sailing along in the front rank, steered with consummate skill and temper by a venerable rider who looks sixty on horseback, and at least eighty on foot. The man’s dress is of the shabbiest and most incongruous, his boots are outrageous, his spurs ill put on, and his hat shows symptoms of ill-usage in warfare or the chase; but he sits in the saddle like a workman, and age has no more quenched the courage in his bright Irish eye, than it has soured the mirth of his temperament, or saddened the music of his brogue. You know instinctively that he must be a good fellow and a good sportsman; you cannot follow him for half a mile without being satisfied that he is a good rider, and you forget, in your admiration of his beast’s performance, your surprise at its obviousyouth, its excessive leanness, and the unusual shabbiness of its accoutrements. Inspecting these more narrowly, if you can get near enough, you begin to grudge the sums you have paid Bartley, or Wilkinson and Kidd, for the neat turn-out you have been taught to consider indispensable to success. You see that a horse may cross a dangerous country speedily and in safety, though its saddle be pulpy and weather-stained, with unequal stirrup-leathers, and only one girth; though its bridle be a Pelham,witha noseband, andwithouta curb-chain, while one rein seems most untrustworthy, and the other, for want of a buckle, has its ends tied in a knot. And yet, wherever the hounds go, thither follow this strangely-equipped pair. They arrive at a seven-foot bank, defended by a wide and, more forbidding still, an enormously deep ditch on this side and with nothing apparently but blue sky on the other. While the man utters an exclamation that seems a threat, a war-cry, and a shout of triumph combined, the horse springs to the summit, perches like a bird, and disappears buoyantly into space as if furnished, indeed, with wings, that it need only spread to fly away. They come to a stone-gap, as it is termed; neither more nor less than a disused egress, made up with blocks of granite into a wall about five feet high, andthe young one, getting close under it, clears the whole out of a trot, with the elasticity and the very action of a deer. Presently some frightful chasm has to be encountered, wide enough for a brook, deep enough for a ravine, boggy of approach, faced with stone, and offering about as awkward an appearance as ever defeated a good man on his best hunter and bade him go to look for a better place.
Our friend in the bad hat, who knows what he is about, rides at this “yawner” a turn slower than would most Englishmen, and with a lighter hand on his horse’s mouth, though his legs and knees are keeping the pupil well into its bridle, and, should the latter want to refuse, or “renage,” as they say in Ireland, a disgrace of which it has not the remotest idea, there is a slip of ground-ash in the man’s fingers ready to administer “a refresher” on its flank. “Did ye draw now?” asks an Irishman when his friend is describing how he accomplished some extraordinary feat in leaping, and the expression, derived from an obsolete custom of sticking the cutting-whip upright in the boot, so that it has come to mean punishment from that instrument, is nearly always answered—“I didnot!” Light as a fairy, our young, but experienced hunter dances down to the gulf, and leaves it behindwith scarce an effort, while an unwashed hand bestows its caress on the reeking neck that will hereafter thicken prodigiously in some Saxon stable on a proper allowance of corn. If you are riding an Irish horse, you cannot do better than imitate closely every motion of the pair in front. If not, you will be wise, I think, to turn round and go home.
Presently we will hope, for the sake of the neophyte, whose condition is by no means on a par with his natural powers, the hounds either kill their fox, or run him to ground, or lose, or otherwise account for him, thus affording a few minutes’ repose for breathing and conversation. “It’s an intrickate country,” observes some brother-sportsman with just such another mount to the veteran I have endeavoured to describe; “and will that be the colt by Chitchat out of Donovan’s mare? Does he ‘lep’ well now?” he adds with much interest. “The beautifullest ever ye see!” answers his friend, and nobody who has witnessed the young horse’s performances can dispute the justice of such a reply. It is not difficult to understand that hunters so educated and so ridden in a country where every leap requires power, courage, and the exercise of much sagacity, should find little difficulty in surmounting such obstacles as confront them onthis side of the Channel. It is child’s play to fly a Leicestershire fence, even with an additional rail, for a horse that has been taught his business amongst the precipitous banks and fathomless ditches of Meath or Kildare. If the ground were always sound and the hills somewhat levelled, these Irish hunters would find little to stop them in Leicestershire from going as straight as their owners dared ride. Practice at walls renders them clever timber-jumpers, they have usually the spring and confidence that make nothing of a brook, and their careful habit of preparing for something treacherous on the landing side of every leap prevents their being taken unawares by the “oxers” and doubles that form such unwelcome exceptions to the usual run of impediments throughout the shires. There is something in the expression of their very ears while we put them at their fences, that seems to say, “It’s a good trick enough, and would take in most horses, but my mother taught me a thing or two in Connemara, and you don’t come over me!” Unfortunately the Shires, as they are calledpar excellence, the Vale of Aylesbury, a perfect wilderness of grass, and indeed all the best hunting districts, ride very deep nine seasons out of ten, so that the Irish horse, accustomed to a sound lime-stone soiland an unfurrowed surface in his own green island, being moreover usually much wanting in condition, feels the added labour, and difference of action required, severely enough. It is proverbial that a horse equal to fourteen stone in Ireland is only up to thirteen in Leicestershire, and English purchasers must calculate accordingly.
But if some prize-taker at the Dublin Horse Show, or other ornament of that land which her natives call the “first flower of the earth and first gem of the sea,” should disappoint you a little when you ride him in November from Ranksborough, the Coplow, Crick, Melton-Spinney, Christmas-Gorse, Great-Wood, or any other favourite covert in one of our many good hunting countries, do not therefore despond. If he fail in deep ground, or labour on ridge and furrow, remember he possesses this inestimable merit thathe can go the shortest way! Because the fence in front is large, black, and forbidding, you need not therefore send him at it a turn faster than usual; he is accustomed to springfrom his back, and cover large places out of a trot. If you ride your own line to hounds, it is no slight advantage thus to have the power of negotiating awkward corners, without being “committed to them” fifty yards off, unable to pull upshould they prove impracticable; and the faculty of “jumping at short notice,” on this consideration alone, I conceive to be one of the choicest qualities a hunter can possess. Also, even in the most favoured and flying of the “grass countries,” many fences require unusual steadiness and circumspection. If they are to be done at all, they can only be accomplished by creeping, sometimes evenclimbingto the wished-for side. The front rank itself will probably shirk these unaccustomed obstacles with cordial unanimity, leaving them to be triumphantly disposed of by your new purchase from Kildare. He pokes out his nose, as if to inspect the depth of a possible interment, and it is wise to let him manage it all his own way. You give him his head, and the slightest possible kick in the ribs. With a cringe of his powerful back and quarters, a vigorous lift that seems to reach two-thirds of the required distance, a second spring, apparently taken from a twig weak enough to bend under a bird, that covers the remainder, a scramble for foothold, a half stride and a snort of satisfaction, the whole is disposed of, and you are alone with the hounds.
Though, under such circumstances, these seem pretty sure to run to ground or otherwise disappoint you within half-a-mile, none the less credit is due toyour horse’s capabilities, and you vow next season to have nothing but Irish nags in your stable, resolving for the future to ride straighter than you have ever done before.
But if you are so well pleased now with your promising Patlander, what shall you think of him this time next year, when he has had twelve months of your stud-groom’s stable-management, and consumed ten or a dozen quarters of good English oats? Though you may have bought him as a six-year old, he will have grown in size and substance, even in height, and will not only look, but feel up to a stone more weight than you ever gave him credit for. He can jump when he is blownnow, but he will never be blownthen. Condition will teach him to laugh at the deep ground, while his fine shoulders and true shape will enable him, after the necessary practice, to travel across ridge and furrow without a lurch. He will have turned out a rattling good horse, and you will never grudge the cheque you wrote, nor the punch you were obliged to drink, before his late proprietor would let you make him your own.
Gold and whisky, in large quantities and judiciously applied, may no doubt buy the best horses in Ireland. But a man must know where to look for them, and even in remote districts, will sometimes be disappointed tofind that the English dealers have forestalled him. Happily, there are so many good horses, perhaps I should say, so fewrank bad ones, bred in the country, that from the very sweepings and leavings of the market, one need not despair of turning up a trump. A hunter is in so far like a wife, that experience alone will prove whether he is or is not good for nothing. Make and shape, in either case, may be perfect, pedigree unimpeachable, and manners blameless, but who is to answer for temper, reflection, docility, and the generous staying power that accepts rough and smooth, ups and downs, good and evil, without a struggle or a sob? When we have tried them, we find them out, and can only make the best of our disappointment, if they do not fully come up to our expectations.
There is many a good hunter, particularly in a rich man’s stable, that never has a chance of proving its value. With three or four, we know their form to a pound; with a dozen, season after season goes by without furnishing occasion for the use of all, till some fine scenting day, after mounting a friend, we are surprised to learn that the flower of the whole stud has hitherto been esteemed but a moderate animal, only fit to carry the sandwiches, and bring us home.
I imagine, notwithstanding all we have heard andread concerning the difficulty of buying Irish horses in their own country, that there are still scores of them in Cork, Limerick, and other breeding districts, as yet unpromised and unsold. The scarcity of weight-carriers is indisputable, but can we find them here? The “light man’s horse,” to fly under sixteen stone, is a “black swan” everywhere, and ifnot“a light man’s horse,” that is to say, free, flippant, fast, and well-bred, he will never give his stalwart rider thorough satisfaction; but in Ireland, far more plentifully than in England, are still to be found handsome, clever, hunting-like animals fit to carry thirteen stone, and capital jumpers at reasonable prices, varying from one to two hundred pounds. The latter sum, particularly if you had it with you insovereigns, would in most localities insure the “pick of the basket,” and ten or twenty of the coins thrown back for luck.
I have heard it objected to Irish hunters, that they are so accustomed to “double” all their places, as to practise this accomplishment even at those flying fences of the grazing districts which ought to be taken in the stride, and that they require fresh tuition before they can be trusted at the staked-and-bound or the bullfinch, lest, catching their feet in the growers as in a net, they should be tumbled headlong to the ground. Ican only say that I have been well and safely carried by many of them on their first appearance in Leicestershire, as in other English countries, that they seemed intuitively to apprehend the character of the fences they had to deal with, and that, although being mortal, they could not always keep on their legs, I cannot remember one of them giving me a fallbecausehe was an Irish horse!
How many their nationality has saved me, I forbear to count, but I am persuaded that the careful tuition undergone in youth, and their varied experience when sufficiently advanced to follow hounds over their native country, imparts that facility of powerful and safe jumping, which is one of the most important qualities among the many that constitute a hunter.
They possess also the merit of being universally well-bred. This is an advantage no sportsman will overlook who likes to be near hounds while they run, but objects to leading, driving, or perhapspushinghis horse home. Till within a few years, there was literallynocart-horse blood in Ireland. The “black-drop” of the ponderous Clydesdale remained positively unknown, and although the Suffolk Punch has been recently introduced, he cannot yet have sufficiently tainted the pedigrees of the country, to render us mistrustful of agolden-coated chestnut, with a round barrel and a strong back.
No, their horses if not quite “clean-bred,” as the Irish themselves call it, are at least of illustrious parentage on both sides a few generations back, and this high descent cannot but avail them, when called on for long-continued exertion, particularly at the end of the day.
Juvenal, hurling his scathing satire against the patricians of his time, drew from the equine race a metaphor to illustrate the superiority of merit over birth. However unanswerable in argument, he was, I think, wrong in his facts. Men and women are to be found of every parentage, good, bad, and indifferent; but with horses, there is more in race than in culture, and for the selection of these noble animals at least, I can imagine no safer guide than the aristocratic maxim, “Blood will tell!”
I haveheard it affirmed, though I know not on what authority, that if we are to believe the hunting records of the last hundred years, in all runs so severe and protracted as to admit of only one man getting to the finish, this exceptional person was ineveryinstance, riding an old horse, a thorough-bred horse, and a horse under fifteen-two!
Perhaps on consideration, this is a less remarkable statement than it appears. That the survivor was an old horse, means that he had many years of corn and condition to pull him through; that he was a little horse, infers he carried a light weight, but that he was a thorough-bred horse seems to me a reasonable explanation of the whole.
“The thorough-bred ones never stop,” is a commonsaying among sportsmen, and there are daily instances of some high-born steed who can boast
“His sire from the desert, his dam from the north,”
galloping steadily on, calm and vigorous, when the country behind him is dotted for miles with hunters standing still in every field.
It is obvious that a breed, reared expressly for racing purposes, must be the fastest of its kind. A colt considered good enough to be “put through the mill” on Newmarket Heath, or Middleham Moor, whatever may be his shortcomings in the select company he finds at school, cannot but seem “a flyer,” when in after-life he meets horses, however good, that have neither been bred nor trained for the purpose of galloping a single mile at the rate of an express train. While these are at speed he is only cantering, and we need not therefore be surprised that he can keep cantering on after they are reduced to a walk.
In the hunting-field, “what kills is the pace.” When hounds can make it good enough they kill their fox, when horsescannotit killsthem, and for this reason alone, if for no other, I would always prefer that my hunters should be quite thorough-bred.
Though undoubtedly the best, I cannot affirm, however, that they are always thepleasantestmounts; farfrom it, indeed, just at first, though subsequent superiority makes amends for the little eccentricities of gait and temper peculiar to pupils from the racing-stable in their early youth.
An idle, lurching mover, rather narrow before the saddle, with great power of back and loins, a habit of bearing on its rider’s hand, one side to its mouth, and a loose neck, hardly inspires a careful man with the confidence necessary for enjoyment; coming away from Ranksborough, for instance, down-hill, with the first fence leaning towards him, very little room, his horse too much extended, going on its shoulders, and getting the better of him at every stride!
But this is an extreme case, purposely chosen to illustrate at their worst, the disadvantages of riding a thorough-bred horse.
It is often our own fault, when we buy one of these illustrious cast-offs, that our purchase so disappoints us after we have got it home. Many men believe that to carry them through an exhausting run, such staying powers are required as win under high weights and at long distances on the turf.
Their selection, therefore, from the racing-stable, is some young one of undeniably stout blood, that when “asked the question” for the first time, has been foundtoo slow to put in training. They argue with considerable show of reason, that it will prove quite speedy enough for a hunter, but they forget that though a fast horse is by no means indispensable to the chase, aquickone is most conducive to enjoyment when we are compelled to jump all sorts of fences out of all sorts of ground.
Now a yearling, quick enough on its legs to promise a turn of speed, is pretty sure to be esteemed worth training, nor will it be condemned as useless, till its distance is found to be just short of half-a-mile. In plain English, when it fails under the strain on wind and frame, of galloping at its very best, eight hundred and seventy yards, and “fades to nothing” in the next ten.
Now this collapse is really more a question of speed than stamina. There is a want of reach or leverage somewhere, that makes its rapid action too laborious to be lasting, but there is no reason why the animal that comes short of five furlongs on the trial-ground, should not hold its own in front, for five miles of a steeple-chase, or fifteen of a run with hounds.
These, in fact, are the so-called “weeds” that win our cross-country races, and when we reflect on the pace and distance of the Liverpool, four miles andthree-quarters run in something under eleven minutes, at anything but feather-weights, and over all sorts of fences, we cannot but admire the speed, gallantry, and endurance, the essentiallygamequalities of our English horse. And here I may observe that a good steeple-chaser, properly sobered and brought into his bridle, is one of the pleasantest hunters a man can ride, particularly in a flying country. He is sure to be able to “make haste” in all sorts of ground, while the smooth, easy stride that wins between the flags is invaluable through dirt. He does not lose his head and turn foolish, as do many good useful hunters, when bustled along for a mile or two at something like racing pace. Very quick over his fences, his style of jumping is no less conducive to safety than despatch, while his courage is sure to be undeniable, because the slightest tendency to refuse would have disqualified him for success in his late profession, wherein also, he must necessarily have learnt to be a free and brilliant water-jumper.
Indeed you may always taketwoliberties with a steeple-chase horse during a run (not more). The first time you squeeze him, he thinks, “Oh! this is the brook!” and putting on plenty of steam, flings himself as far as ever he can. The second, he accepts your warning with equal good will. “All right!” he seemsto answer, “This is the brook, coming home!” but if you try the same game a third time, I cannot undertake to say what may happen, you will probably puzzle him exceedingly, upset his temper, and throw him out of gear for the day.
We have travelled a long way, however, from our original subject, tuition of the thorough-bred for the field, or perhaps I should call it the task of turning a bad race-horse into a good hunter.
Like every other process of education this requires exceeding perseverance, and a patience not to be overcome. The irritation of a moment may undo the lessons of a week, and if the master forgets himself, you may be sure the pupil will long remember which of the two was in fault. Never begin a quarrel if it can possibly be avoided, because, when war is actually declared, you must fight it out to the bitter end, and if you are beaten, you had better send your horse to Tattersall’s, for you will never be master again.
Stick to him till he does what you require, trusting, nevertheless, rather to time than violence, and if you can get him at last to obey you of his own free will, without knowing why, I cannot repeat too often, you will have won the most conclusive of victories.
When the late Sir Charles Knightley took Sir Marinelout of training, and brought him down to Pytchley, to teach him the way he should go (and the way of Sir Charles over a country was that of a bird in the air), he found the horse restive, ignorant, wilful, and unusually averse to learning the business of a hunter. The animal, was, however, well worth a little painstaking, and his owner, a perfect centaur in the saddle, rode him out for a lesson in jumping the first day the hounds remained in the kennel. At two o’clock, as his old friend and contemporary, Mr. John Cooke informed me, he came back, having failed to get the rebel over a single fence. “But I have told them not to take his saddle off,” said Sir Charles, sitting down to a cutlet and a glass of Madeira, “after luncheon I mean to have a turn at him again!”
So the baronet remounted and took the lesson up where he had left off. Nerve, temper, patience, the strongest seat, and the finest hands in England, could not but triumph at last, and this thorough-bred pair came home at dinner-time, having larked over all the stiffest fences in the country, with perfect unanimity and good will. Sir Marinel, and Benvolio, also a thorough-bred horse, were by many degrees, Sir Charles has often told me, the best hunters he ever had.
Shuttlecock too, immortalized in the famous Billesdon-Coplow poem, when
“Villiers esteemed it a serious bore,That no longer could Shuttlecock fly as before,”
was a clean thorough-bred horse, fast enough to have made a good figure on the race-course, but with a rooted disinclination to jump.
That king of horsemen, the grandfather of the present Lord Jersey, whom I am proud to remember having seen ride fairly away from a whole Leicestershire field, over a rough country not far from Melton, at seventy-three, told me that this horse, though it turned out eventually one of his safest and boldest fencers, at the end of six weeks’ tuition would not jump the leaping-bar the height of its own knees! His lordship, however, who was blessed in perfection, with the sweet temper, as with the personal beauty and gallant bearing of his race, neither hurried nor ill-used it, and the time spent on the animal’s education, though somewhat wearisome, was not thrown away.
Mr. Gilmour’s famousVingt-et-un, the best hunter, he protests, by a great deal that gentleman ever possessed, was quite thorough-bred. Seventeen hands high, but formed all over in perfect proportion to this commanding frame, it may easily be imagined that thepower and stride of so large an animal made light of ordinary obstacles, and I do not believe, though it may sound an extravagant assertion, there was a fence in the whole of Leicestershire that could have stoppedVingt-et-unand his rider, on a good scenting day some few years ago. Such men and such horses ought never to grow old.
Mr. William Cooke, too, owned a celebrated hunter called Advance, of stainless pedigree, as was December, so named from being foaled on the last day of that month, a premature arrival that lost him his year for racing purposes by twenty-four hours, and transferred the colt to the hunting-stables. Mr. Cooke rode nothing but this class, nor indeed could any animal less speedy than a race-horse, sustain the pace he liked to go.
Whitenose, a beautiful animal that the late Sir Richard Sutton affirmed was not only the best hunter he ever owned, but that he ever saw or heard of, and on whose back he is painted in Sir F. Grant’s spirited picture of the Cottesmore Meet, was also quite thorough-bred. When Sir Richard hunted the Burton country, Whitenose carried him through a run so severe in pace and of such long duration, that not another horse got to the end, galloping, his master assured me, steadily on without a falter, to the last. By the way, he was thenof no great age, and nearer sixteen hands than fifteen-two! This was a very easy horse to ride, and could literally jump anything he got his nose over. A picture to look at, with a coat like satin, the eyes of a deer, and the truest action in his slow as in his fast paces, he has always been my ideal of perfection in a hunter.
But it would be endless to enumerate the many examples I can recall of the thorough-bred’s superiority in the hunting-field. Those I have mentioned belong to a by-gone time, but a man need not look very narrowly into any knot of sportsmen at the present day, particularlyaftera sharpish scurry in deep ground, before his eye rests on the thin tail, and smoothly turned quarters, that need no gaudier blazon to attest the nobility of their descent.
If you mean, however, to ride a thorough-bred one, and choose tomakehim yourself, do not feel disappointed that he seems to require more time and tuition than his lower-born cousins, once and twice removed.
In the first place you will begin by thinking him wanting in courage! Where the half-bred one, eager, flurried, and excited, rushes wildly at an unaccustomed difficulty, your calmer gentleman proceeds deliberately to examine its nature, and consider how he can bestaccomplish his task. It is not that he has less valour, but more discretion! In the monotonous process of training, he has acquired, with other tiresome tricks, the habit of doing as little as he can, in the different paces, walk, canter, and gallop, of which he has become so weary. Even the excitement of hunting till houndsreallyrun, hardly dissipates his aristocratic lethargy, but only get him in front for one of those scurries that, perhaps twice in a season turn up a fox in twenty minutes, and if youdaretrust him, you will be surprised at the brilliant performance of your idle, negligent, wayward young friend. He bends kindly to the bridle he objected to all the morning, he tucks his quarters in, andscoursthrough the deep ground like a hare, he slides over rather than jumps his fences, with the easy swoop of a bird on the wing, and when everything of meaner race has been disposed of a field or two behind, he trots up to some high bit of timber, and leaps it gallantly without a pause, though only yesterday he would have turned round to kick at it for an hour!
Still, there are many chances against your having such an opportunity as this. Most days the hounds donotrun hard. When they do, you are perhaps so unfortunate as to lose your start, and finally, shouldeverything else be in your favour, it is twenty to one you are riding the wrong horse!
Therefore, the process of educating your young one, must be conducted on quieter principles, and in a less haphazard way. If you can find a pack of harriers, andtheir master does not object, there is no better school for the troublesome or unwilling pupil. But remember, I entreat, that horsebreaking is prejudicial to sport, and most unwelcome. You are there on sufferance, take care to interfere with nobody, and above all, keep wide of the hounds! The great advantage you will find in harehunting over the wilder pursuit of the fox, is in the circles described by your game. There is plenty of time to “have it out” with a refuser, and indeed to turn him backwards and forwards if you please, over the same leap, without fear of being left behind. The “merry harriers” are pretty sure to return in a few minutes, and you can begin again, with as much enthusiasm of man and horse as if you had never been out of the hunt at all! Whip and spur, I need hardly insist, cannot be used too sparingly, and anything in the shape of haste or over-anxiety is prejudicial, but if it induces him to jump in his stride, you may ride this kind of horse a turn faster at his fences, than any other. You can trust him not to be in too great ahurry, and it is his nature to take care of himself. Till he has become thoroughly accustomed to his new profession, it is well to avoid such places as seem particularly distasteful and likely to make him rebel. His fine skin will cause him to be a little shy of thick bullfinches, and his sagacity mistrusts deep or blind ditches, such as less intelligent animals would run into without a thought. Rather select rails, or clean upright fences, that he can compass and understand. Try to imbue him with love for the sport and confidence in his rider. After a few weeks, he will turn his head from nothing, and go straighter, as well as faster, and longer than anything in your stable.
An old Meltonian used to affirm that the first two articles of his creed for the hunting season were, “a perfectly pure claret, and thorough-bred horses.” Of the former he was unsparing to his friends, the latter he used freely enough for himself. Certainly no man gave pleasanter dinners, or was better carried, and one might do worse than go to Melton with implicit reliance on these twin accessories of the chase. All opinions must be agreed, I fancy, about the one, but there are still many prejudices against the other. Heavy men especially declare they cannot find thorough-bred horses to carry them, forgetting, it would seem, thatsize is no more a criterion of strength than haste is of speed. The bone of a thorough-bred horse is of the closest and toughest fibre, his muscles are well developed, and his joints elastic. Do not these advantages infer power, no less than stamina, and in our own experience have we not all reason to corroborate the old-fashioned maxim, “It is action that carries weight”? Nimrod, who understood the subject thoroughly, observes with great truth, that “‘Wind’ is strength; when a horse is blown a mountain or a mole-hill are much the same to him,” and no sportsman who has ever scaled a Highland hill to circumvent a red-deer, or walk up to “a point,” will dispute the argument. What a game animal it is, that without touch of spur, at the mere pleasure and caprice of a rider, struggles gallantly on till it drops!
There used to be a saying in the Prize Ring, that “Seven pounds will lick the best man in England.” This is but a technical mode of stating that,cæteris paribus, weight means strength. Thirty years ago, it was a common practice at Melton to weigh hunters after they were put in condition, and sportsmen often wondered to find how the eye had deceived them, in the comparative tonnage, so to speak, and consequently, the horse-power of these different conveyances; thethorough-bred, without exception, proving far heavier than was supposed.
An athlete, we all know, whether boxer, wrestler, pedestrian, cricketer or gymnast, looks smaller in his clothes, and larger when he is stripped. Similarly, on examining in the stable, “the nice little horse” we admired in the field, it surprises us to find nearly sixteen hands of height, and six feet of girth, with power to correspond in an animal of which we thought the only defect was want of size. A thorough-bred one is invariably a little bigger, and a great deal stronger than he looks. Of his power to carry weight, those tall, fine men who usually ride so judiciously and so straight, are not yet sufficiently convinced, although if you ask any celebrated “welter” to name the best horse he ever had, he is sure to answer, “Oh! little So-and-so. He wasn’t up to my weight, but he carried me better than anything else in the stable!” Surely no criterion could be more satisfactory than this!
It may not be out of place to observe here, as an illustration of the well-known maxim, “Horses can go in all shapes,” that of the three heaviest men I can call to mind who rode perfectly straight to hounds, the best hunter owned by each was too long in the back. “Sober Robin,” an extraordinary animal that could carry Mr.Richard Gurney, riding twenty stone, ahead of all the light-weights, was thus shaped. A famous bay-horse, nearly as good, belonging to the late Mr. Wood of Brixworth Hall, an equally heavy man, who when thus mounted, never stopped to open a gate! had, his owner used to declare, as many vertebræ as a crocodile, and Colonel Wyndham whose size and superiority in the saddle I have already mentioned, hesitated a week before he bought his famous black mare, the most brilliant hunter he ever possessed, because she was at least three inches too long behind the saddle!
I remember also seeing the late Lord Mayo ride fairly away from a Pytchley field, no easy task, between Lilbourne and Cold Ashby, on a horse that except for its enormous depth of girth, arguing unfailing wind, seemed to have no good points whatever to catch the eye. It was tall, narrow, plain-headed, with very bad shoulders, and very long legs, all this to carry at least eighteen stone; but it was nearly, if not quite, thorough-bred.
We need hardly dwell on the advantages of speed and endurance, inherited from the Arab, and improved, as we fondly hope, almost to perfection, through the culture of many generations, while even the fine temper of the “desert-born” has not been so warped by the tricks ofstable-boys, and the severity of turf-discipline, but that a little forbearance and kind usage soon restores its natural docility.
In all the qualities of a hunter, the thorough-bred horse, is, I think, superior to the rest of his kind. You can hardly do better than buy one, and “make him to your hand,” should you be blessed with good nerves, a fine temper, and a delicate touch, or, wanting these qualities, confide him to some one so gifted, if you wish to be carried well and pleasantly, in your love for hunting, perhaps I should rather say, for the keen and stirring excitement we call “riding to hounds.”
“Ifyou want to be near hounds,” says an old friend of mine who, for a life-time, has religiously practised what he preaches, “the method is simple, and seems only common sense—keep as close to them as ever you can!” but I think, though, with his undaunted nerve, and extraordinary horsemanship, he seems to find it feasible enough, this plan, for most people, requires considerable management, and no little modification.
I grant we should never let them slip away from us, and that, in nine cases out of ten, when defeated by what we choose to call “a bad turn” it is our own fault. At the same time, there are many occasions on which a man who keeps his eyes open, and knows how to ride, can save his horse to some purpose, by travelling inside the pack, and galloping a hundred yards for their three.
I saywho keeps his eyes open, because, in order to effect this economy of speed and distance, it is indispensable to watch their doings narrowly, and to possess the experience that tells one when they arereallyon the line, and when only flinging forward to regain, with the dash that is a fox-hound’s chief characteristic, the scent they have over-run. Constant observation will alone teach us to distinguish the hounds that are right; and to turn with them judiciously, is the great secret of “getting to the end.”
We must, therefore, be within convenient distance, and to ensure such proximity, it is most desirable to get a good start. Let us begin at the beginning, and consider how this primary essential is to be obtained.
Directly a move is made from the place of meeting, it is well to cut short all “coffee-house” conversation, even at the risk of neglecting certain social amenities, and to fix our minds at once on the work in hand. A good story, though pleasant enough in its way, cannot compare with a good run, and it is quite possible to lose the one by too earnest attention to the other.
A few courteous words previously addressed to the huntsman will ensure his civility during the day; but this is not a happy moment for imparting to him your opinion on things in general and his own business inparticular. He has many matters to occupy his thoughts, and does not care to see you in the middle of his favourites on a strange horse. It is better to keep the second whip between yourself and the hounds, jogging calmly on, with a pleasant view of their well-filled backs and handsomely-carried sterns, taking care to pull up, religiously murmuring the orthodox caution—“Ware horse!” when any one of them requires to pause for any purpose. You cannot too early impress on the hunt servants that you are a lover of the animal, most averse to interfering with it at all times, and especially in the ardour of the chase. If the size and nature of the covert will admit, you had better go into it with the hounds, and on this occasion, but no other, I think it is permissible to make use of the huntsman’s pilotage at a respectful distance. Where there are foxes there is game, where game, riot. A few young hounds must come out with every pack, and therateorcheerof your leader will warn you whether their opening music means a false flourish or a welcome find. Also where he goes you can safely follow, and need have no misgivings that the friendly hand-gate for which he is winding down some tortuous ride will be nailed up.
Besides, though floundering in deep, sloughy woodlands entails considerable labour on your horse, it is lessdistressing than that gallop of a mile or two at speed which endeavours, but usually fails, to make amends for a bad start; whereas, if you get away on good terms, you can indulge him with a pull at the first opportunity, and those scenting days are indeed rare on which hounds run many fields without at least a hover, if not a check.
Some men take their station outside the covert, down wind, in a commanding position, so as to hear every turn of the hounds, secure a front place for the sport, and—head the fox!
But we will suppose all such difficulties overcome; that a little care, attention, and common sense have enabled you to get away on good terms with the pack; and that you emerge not a bowshot off, while they stream across the first field with a dash that brings the mettle to your heart and the blood to your brain. Do not, therefore, lose your head. It is the characteristic of good manhood to be physically calm in proportion to moral excitement. Remember there are two occasions in chase when the manner of hounds is not to be trusted. On first coming away with their fox, and immediately before they kill him, the steadiest will lead you to believe there is a burning scent and that they cannot make a mistake. Nevertheless, hope for the best, set your horse going, and if, as you sail over, orcrash through, the first fence, you mark the pack driving eagerly on, drawn to a line at either end by the pace, harden your heart, and thank your stars. It is all right, you may lay odds, you are in for a really good thing!
I suppose I need hardly observe that the laws of fox-hunting forbid you to follow hounds by the very obvious process of galloping in their track. Nothing makes them so wild, to use the proper term, as “riding on their line;” and should you be ignorant enough to attempt it, you are pretty sure to be toldwhereyou are driving them, and desired to go there yourself!
No; you must keep one side or the other, but do not, if you can help it, let the nature of the obstacles to be encountered bias your choice. Ride for ground as far as possible when the foothold is good; the fences will take care of themselves; but let no advantages of sound turf, nor even open gates, tempt you to stray more than a couple of hundred yards from the pack. At that distance a bad turn can be remedied, and a good one gives you leisure to pull back into a trot. Remember, too, that it is the nature of a fox, and we are now speaking of fox-hunting, to travel down wind; therefore, as a general rule, keep to leeward of the hounds. Every bend they make ought to be in your favour; but, on the other hand should they chance to turn up wind,they will begin to run very hard, and this is a good reason for never letting them get, so to speak, out of your reach. I repeat, as ageneral rule, but by no means without exception. In Leicestershire especially, foxes seem to scorn this fine old principle, and will make their point with a stiff breeze blowing in their teeth; but on such occasions they do not usually mean to go very far, and the gallant veteran, with his white tag, that gives you the run to be talked of for years, is almost always a wind-sinker from wold or woodland in an adjoining hunt.
Suppose, however, the day is perfectly calm, and there seems no sufficient reason to prefer one course to the other, should we go to right or left? This is a matter in which neither precept nor personal experience can avail. One man is as sure to do right as the other to do wrong. There is an intuitive perception, more animal than human, of what we may call “the line of chase,” with which certain sportsmen are gifted by nature, and which, I believe, would bring them up at critical points of the finest and longest runs if they came out hunting in a gig. This faculty, where everything else is equal, causes A to ride better than B, but is no less difficult to explain than the instinct that guides an Indian on the prairie or a swallow across thesea. It counsels the lady in her carriage, or the old coachman piloting her children on their ponies, it enables the butcher to come up on his hack, the first-flight man to save his horse, and above all, the huntsman to kill his fox.
The Duke of Beaufort possesses it in an extraordinary degree. When so crippled by gout, or reduced by suffering as to be unable to keep the saddle over a fence, he seems, even in strange countries, to see no less of the sport than in old days, when he could ride into every field with his hounds. And I do believe that now, in any part of Gloucestershire, with ten couple of “the badger-pyed” and a horn, he could go out and kill his fox in a Bath-chair!
Perhaps, however, his may be an extreme case. No man has more experience, few such a natural aptitude and fondness for the sport. Lord Worcester, too, like his father, has shown how an educated gentleman, with abilities equal to all exigencies of a high position that affords comparatively little leisure for the mere amusements of life, can excel, in their own profession, men who have been brought up to it from childhood, whose thoughts and energies, winter and summer, morning, noon, and night, are concentrated on the business of the chase.
This knack of getting to hounds then—should weconsider genius or talent too strong terms to use for proficiency in field sports—while a most valuable quality to everybody who comes out hunting, is no less rare than precious. If we have it we are to be congratulated and our horses still more, but if, like the generality of men, we have itnot, let us consider how far common sense and close attention will supply the want of a natural gift.
It was said of an old friend of mine, the keenest of the keen, that he always rode as if he had never seen a run before, and should never see a run again! This, I believe, is something of the feeling with which we ought to be possessed, impelling us to take every legitimate advantage and to throw no possible chance away. It cannot be too often repeated that judicious choice of ground is the very first essential for success. Therefore the hunting-field has always been considered so good a school for cavalry officers. There seems no limit to the endurance of a horse in travelling over a hard and tolerably level surface, even under heavy weight, but we all know the fatal effect of a very few yards in a steam-ploughed field, when the gallant animal sinks to its hocks every stride. Keep an eye forward then, and shape your course where the foothold is smooth and sound. In a hilly country choose the sides of theslopes, above, rather than below, the pack, for, if they turn away from you, it is harder work to gallop up, than down. In the latter case, and for this little hint I am indebted to Lord Wilton, do not increase your speed so as to gain in distance, rather preserve the same regular pace, so as to save in wind. Descending an incline at an easy canter, and held well together, your horse is resting almost as if he were standing still. It is quite time enough when near the bottom to put on a spurt that will shoot him up the opposite rise.
On the grass, if youmustcross ridge-and-furrow, take it a-slant, your horse will pitch less on his shoulders, and move with greater ease, while if they lie the right way, by keeping him on the crest, rather than in the trough of those long parallel rollers, you will ensure firm ground for his gallop, and a sounder, as well as higher take-off for the leap, when he comes to his fence.
I need hardly remind you that in all swampy places, rushes may be trusted implicitly, and experienced hunters seem as well aware of the fact as their riders. Vegetable growth, indeed, of any kind has a tendency to suck moisture into its fibres, and consequently to drain, more or less, the surface in its immediate vicinity. The deep rides of a woodland are least treacherous attheir edges, and the brink of a brook is most reliable close to some pollard or alder bush, particularly on the upper side, as Mr. Bromley Davenport knew better than most people, when he wrote his thrilling lines:—
“Then steady, my young one! the place I’ve selectedAbove the dwarf willow, is sound, I’ll be bail;With your muscular quarters beneath you collected,Prepare for a rush like the limited mail!”
But we cannot always be on the grass, nor, happily are any of us obliged, often in a life time, to ride at the Whissendine!
In ploughed land, choose a wet furrow, for the simple reason that water would not stand in it unless the bottom were hard, but if you cannot find one, nor a foot-path, nor a cart-track trampled down into a certain consistency, remember the fable of the hare and the tortoise, pull your horse back into a trot, and never fear but that you will be able to make up your leeway when you arrive at better ground. It is fortunate that the fences are usually less formidable here than in the pastures, and will admit of creeping into, and otherwise negotiating, with less expenditure of power, so you may travel pretty safely, and turn at pleasure, shorter than the hounds.
Thereareplough countries, notably in Gloucestershireand Wilts, that ride light. To them the above remarks in no way apply. Inclosed with stone walls, if there is anything like a scent, hounds carry such a head, and run so hard over these districts, that you must simply go as fast as your horse’s pace, and as straight as his courage admits, but if you have the Duke of Beaufort’s dog-pack in front of you, do not be surprised to find, with their extraordinary dash and enormous stride, that even on the pick of your stable, ere you can jump into one field they are half-way across the next.
In hunting, as in everything else, compensation seems the rule of daily life, and the very brilliancy of the pace affords its own cure. Either hounds run into their fox, or, should he find room to turn, flash over the scent, and bring themselves to a check. You will not then regret having made play while you could, and although no good sportsman, and, indeed, no kind-hearted man, would overtax the powers of the most generous animal in creation, still we must remember that we came out for the purpose of seeing the fun, and unless we can keep near the hounds while they run we shall lose many beautiful instances of their sagacity when brought to their noses, and obliged to hunt.
There is no greater treat to a lover of the chase than to watch a pack of high-bred fox-hounds thathave been running hard on pasture, brought suddenly to a check on the dusty sun-dried fallows. After dashing and snatching in vain for a furlong or so, they will literally quarter their ground like pointers, till they recover the line, every yard of which they make good, with noses down and sterns working as if from the concentrated energy of all their faculties, till suspicion becomes certainty, and they lay themselves out once more, in the uncontrolled ecstasy of pursuit.
Now if you are a mile behind, you miss all these interesting incidents, and lose, as does your disappointed hunter, more than half the amusement you both came out to enjoy. The latter too, works twice as hard when held back in the rear, as when ridden freely and fearlessly in front. The energy expended in fighting with his rider would itself suffice to gallop many a furlong and leap many a fence, while the moral effect of disappointment is most disheartening to a creature of such a highly-strung nervous organisation. Look at the work done by a huntsman’s horse before the very commencement of some fine run, the triumphant conclusion of which depends so much on his freshness at the finish, and yet how rarely does he succumb to the labour of love imposed; but then he usually leaves the covert in close proximity to his friends the hounds,every minute of his toil is cheered by their companionship, and, having no leeway to make up he need not be overpaced when they are running their hardest, while he finds a moment’s leisure to recover himself when they are hunting their closest and best. In those long and severe chases, to which, unhappily, two or three horses may sometimes be sacrificed, the “first flight” are not usually sufferers. Death from exhaustion is more likely to be inflicted cruelly, though unwittingly on his faithful friend and comrade, by the injudicious and hesitating rider, who has neither decision to seize a commanding position in front, nor self-denial to be satisfied with an unassuming retirement in rear. His valour and discretion are improperly mixed, like bad punch, and fatal is the result. A timely pull means simply the difference between breathlessness and exhaustion, but this opportune relief is only available for him who knows exactly how far they brought it, and where the hounds flashed beyond the line of their fox at a check.
I remember in my youth, alas! long ago, “the old sportsman”—a character for whom, I fear, we entertained in my day less veneration than we professed—amongst many inestimable precepts was fond of propounding the following:—
“Young gentleman, nurse your hunter carefully at the beginning of a run, and when the others are tired he will enable you to see the end.”