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 called par 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 soil and
an unfurrowed surface in his own green island,
being moreover usually much wanting in con-
dition, 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
Eanksborough, the Coplow, Crick, Melton-
Spinney, Christmas-Grorse, 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 that lie can go the shortest way ! Because



158 BIDING RECOLLECTIONS

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 spring
from his back, and cover large places out cf 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 up should 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 even climbing to 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



IRISH HUNTERS 159

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 disap-
point you within half-a-mile, none the less credit
is due to your 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 blown now, but he will never be blown
then. 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.



160 BIDING RECOLLECTIONS

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 to find that the
English dealers have forestalled him. Happily,
there are so many good horses, perhaps I should
say, so few rank 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



IBISH HUNTERS 161

esteemed but a moderate animal, only fit to carry
the sandwiches, and bring us home.

I imagine, notwithstanding all we have heard
and read 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 if not " 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 in sovereigns, 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,

11



162 BIDING RECOLLECTIONS

lest, catching their feet in the growers as in a net,
they should be tumbled headlong to the ground.
I can only say that I have been well and safely
carried by many of them on their first appearance
in Leicestershire, as in other English counties,
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 fall because he was
an Irish horse !

How many their nationality has saved me, 1
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 perhaps
pushing his horse home. Till within a few years,
there was literally no cart-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 a



IRISH HUNTERS 163

golden-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 gene-
rations 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 parent-
age, 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 ! "



CHAPTEE X

THOEOUGH-BEED HOESES

I HAVE heard 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 excep-
tional person was in every instance, riding an
old horse, a thorough-bred horse, and a horse
under fifteen-two !

Perhaps on consideration, this is a less remark-
able statement than it appears. That the sur-
vivor 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
common saying among sportsmen, and there are



164



THOROUGH-BRED HORSES 165

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 short-
comings 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 gallop-
ing 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
walk.

In the hunting-field, " what kills is the pace."
When hounds can make it good enough they
kill their fox, when horses cannot it kills them,
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 the pleasantest



166 BIDING RECOLLECTIONS

mounts ; far from 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 Eanksborough,
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 found too slow to put in
training. They argue with considerable show



THOEOUGH-BEED HOESES 167

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,
a quick one 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 con-
demned 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 and three quarters run in something
under eleven minutes, at anything but feather-
weights, and over all sorts of fences, we cannot



168 BIDING RECOLLECTIONS

but admire the speed, gallantry, and endurance,
the essentially game qualities 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
dispatch, while his courage is sure to be undeni-
able, 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 take two liberties with
a steeple-chase horse during a run (not more).
The first time you squeeze him, bethinks, " 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 seems to answer,
" This is the brook, coming home ! " but if you
try the same game a third time, I cannot under-
take to say what may happen, you will probably



THOBOUGH-BBED HOBSES 169

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 Marinel out 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



170 RIDING RECOLLECTIONS

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 goodwill.
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, immortalised 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



THOROUGH-BRED HORSES 171

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 re-
member 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 weari-
some, was not thrown away.

Mr. Gilmour's famous Vingt-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 the power
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 stopped Vingt-et-un and his rider, on
a good scenting day some few years ago. Such
men and such horses ought never to grow old.



172 BIDING RECOLLECTIONS

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 Eichard 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 then of 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



THOROUGH-BRED HORSES 173

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, particularly
after a 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 to make him 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 best accomplish
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 hounds really run,
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



174 BIDING RECOLLECTIONS

twenty minutes, and if you dare trust 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, and scours
through 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 do not run hard. When they do,
you are perhaps so unfortunate as to lose your
start, and finally, should everything 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, and their 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,



THOROUGH-SEED HORSES 175

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 way 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