Dublin Horse Show. 301 



Hunting Editor, have been an attractive feature in that paper. 

 He is Polo Manager at Ranelagh, and has written several 

 good books, the one of which most takes my fancy is that on 

 Polo, This good sportsman puts pigsticking in front of hunt- 

 ing, and polo third. I would give hunting, chasing and pig- 

 sticking as the order of preference, and polo fourth, probably 

 because I have not played that game much. But, quot 

 homines, tot sententice. 



As my wife had never been to Ireland, I was glad to have 

 the chance of taking her to the Dublin Horse Show, at which 

 she would have a favourable view of the horses and men of 

 Paddyland. The show of saddle horses at Ball's Bridge was 

 certainly very fine. The most of them were grandly * topped ' 

 and carried their heads, necks and tails well. I could not 

 help thinking that the ' bone ' of too many of them had been 

 obtained more by an infusion of cart blood than by judicious 

 selection. Not having been in Ireland since I began the 

 serious study of breaking, I was greatly surprised to see that, 

 with few exceptions, the horses were singularly deficient of 

 either ' manners ' or ' mouths.' When cantered round a 

 large ring, it was enough to take the conceit out of an Irish- 

 man for his countrymen's knowledge of horses, to see how the 

 animals bored on their riders' hands, led with the wrong leg, 

 went at the speed which each one thought best, and required 

 at least a couple of hundred yards in which to pull up. The 

 necessity for instruction in horse breaking (not horse taming) 

 was obvious, and nothing would have given me greater pleas- 

 ure than to have gone through the country on a breaking 

 tour, had such a scheme been feasible ; but the horse-taming 

 farce had been played so often that had I had any such inten- 

 tion, I would have had, first of all, to live down, for goodness 

 knows how many years, the bad impression made by others. 

 I need hardly say that breeders and owners of horses in the 

 United Kingdom are keenly alive to the advantages of know- 

 ing how, quickly and efficiently, to give their horses, which 

 have been reared under civilised conditions, snaffle - bridle 



