CHAPTER IX. 



IRISH HUNTERS. 



AN' niver laid an iron to the sod ! " was a metaphor 

 I once heard used by an excellent fellow from Limerick, 

 to convey the brilliant manner in which a certain four- 

 year-old he was describing performed during a burst, 

 when, his owner told me, he went clean away from all 

 rivals in his gallop, and flew every wall, bank, and 

 ditch, in his stride. 



The expression, translated into English, would seem 

 to imply that he neither perched on the grass- grown 

 banks, with all four feet at once, like a cat, nor struck 

 back at them with his hind legs, like a dog ; and perhaps 

 my friend made the more account of this hazardous 

 style of jumping, that it seemed so foreign to the usual 

 characteristics of the Irish horse. 



