CONDITION RESUMED 157 



horses died in the course of the winter, and six of the 

 other seven were never in condition at all, and the 

 mare died after the first good run she dropped into. 

 From a pecuniary point of view, including accidents 

 and all other casualties, I have no hesitation in asserting, 

 that in the course of twenty years the bullock-feeding 

 system of summering hunters shall be fifty per cent, 

 against those who adopt it ! As to accidents, they are 

 as numerous as unlooked for ; and I know not when 

 I should have done enumerating them were I once 

 to begin. At Chester races, a gentleman by the name 

 of Purshouse, well known in Staffordshire as a good 

 sportsman and a still better rider, came up to me, 

 and said, " You remember my pigeon-eyed horse ? " 

 — " To be sure I do," replied I : "he was a hunter, 

 and could carry weight well ; and I have been often 

 delighted to see you ride him across a country." — 

 " I shall never do it again," added he ; " for he is 

 gone broken-winded. I turned him out to grass in 

 the summer, when he used to amuse himself by gallop- 

 ing round his pasture tiU he was heated, and then 

 lying down in a pond to cool himself. He did it too 

 often, and inflammation of the lungs was the con- 

 sequence." 



During the season for physicking hunters, let me 

 strongly recommend all my brother sportsmen to 

 caution their grooms against giving too strong doses 

 to their horses, and to prepare them well by bran 

 mashes. 1 Misfortunes, they say, seldom come alone ; 



^ This celebrated sportsman's remarks re the administration of 

 physic, are admirable and correct. To obtain and regulate the 



