BREEDING OF HUNTERS. 297 



bred such bad amimals, weak hocked, and not able 

 to go a yard in dirt, for several seasons, that ' ' Nim- 

 rod 3) advised her owner, to save himself an in- 

 come by cutting her throat Alas for advice gratis ! 

 she lived to produce British Yeoman.* 



Peter Simple's steeple-chase prowess is still fondly 

 remembered in Lincolnshire, and we have often been 

 amused with the habit which prevails there, of com- 

 paring the points of every grey hunter, by "Old 

 Peter," as he is familiarly termed. He was a grey 

 light-fleshed varmint-looking horse, not very big, but 

 all muscle and wire ; and, be the fence what it might, 

 he would, like his more modern namesake from the 

 Holderness country, have it some way or other, and 

 without a mistake. Such light perfect action as his has 

 been rarely seen, and this knack of moving was pecu- 

 liar to all the stock of Arbutus. It was in a run from 

 Bradley Wood to Irby Holmes, during a very foggy 

 morning, that a few of the leaders first began to sus- 

 pect that something extraordinary in the horse-flesh 

 way was coming out, as they never could get rid of 

 the grey spectre. Gaylad, a lengthy coaching-sort 

 of horse by Brutandorf, was another of the Lincoln- 

 shire steeple-chase cracks, but he was unable to get 

 through dirt like Peter Simple ; still, what he lost 

 by being slow even on good ground, he made up by 

 his power of going on in his stride after a fence, and 

 although he seemed to gallop over them, he rarely, 

 if ever, made a mistake. The Greyling, Cigar, and 

 Grimaldi were also the incarnation of " gallant 

 greys/' and the latter was a fifteen-three horse on 

 short legs, and at least half a hand less than his 

 l e ggy steeple-chase rival, Moonraker, of whom, 

 with " The Squire" up, he cleverly disposed, in their 

 great 1,000-guinea match. Moonraker was origin- 

 ally bought for 20 sovs. at Birmingham Fair, snd 



* Sporting Review, February, 1850. 



