136 VARIETIES OF THE HORSE 



that the Thoroughbred all the same may not always be the pleasantest 

 of mounts. Dick Christian, whose valuable opinions upon the question 

 of Hunters have been immortalized by "The Druid", was precisely of the 

 same opinion, and he expressed himself in very similar though perhaps 

 more emphatic terms; whilst "Nimrod" (Mr. Apperly), in 1842, although 

 he did not advocate the claims of the clean-bred horse as a Hunter, 

 recognized the desirability of a bit of blood in his composition. The 

 remarks of the last writer, so far as they have reference to the Thorough- 

 bred being used in the field, may perhaps be accepted as a reply to 

 the suggestion made by Blaine two years previously, when he observed 

 that it would be well worth the while of hunting men to purchase some 

 likely young Thoroughbreds that were not fast enough for racing, and 

 having thrown them up for a time, to proceed to make them into Hunters. 



From these references to the opinions of men whose names are still 

 household words in the hunting world, it will be seen that if the out-and- 

 out sticklers for blood are wrong in the views they possess upon the 

 subject of Hunter-breeding, they are erring in extremely good company. 

 Moreover, in view of the uncertainty which the opinions referred to 

 foreshadow, it is scarcely probable that Hunter-breeders would summon 

 up the heart or courage to make experiments on a large scale. They 

 certainly do not appear to have exerted themselves very much until the 

 last few years, to produce even the proper kind of mare to cross with 

 the Thoroughbred stallions whose services they so implicitly rely upon, 

 the result being that Hunter-breeding has generally been a lottery, in 

 which the number of the blanks has been far in excess of that of the 

 prizes. Any sort of mare was promiscuously put to Thoroughbreds by 

 enterjjrising farmers, who were prepared to chance their fortune; and 

 the produce of the union was recrossed with the Thoroughbred or not 

 just as luck would have it. This is illustrated by the statement of an 

 elderly farmer, which is repeated by the Druid. This breeder told him 

 that he had never produced the type of Hunter he wanted until he had 

 put a short-legged cart mare to a Thoroughbred horse, and then had the 

 female produce of the union served by another Thoroughbred, and this 

 brought him what he wished to get. 



The above system has no doubt been practised with varying results 

 by many Hunter-breeders of the past, and some also of the jJi'esent time. 

 Others have set to work on different material, and have used the Thorough- 

 bred upon all sorts of light mares from the Coach-horse downwards. It 

 may be noticed, too, that there were " hunters " of some sort or other 

 in England at a date prior to the period when the Thoroughbred horse 

 as we know him became available for a cross, but it is pretty certain that 



