i;8 RIDING RECOLLECTIONS. 



Richard Gurney, riding twenty stone, ahead of all the 

 light-weights, was thus shaped. A famous bay-horse, 

 nearly as good, belonging to the late Mr. Wood of 

 Brixworth Hall, an equally heavy man, who when thus 

 mounted, never stopped to open a gate ! had, his owner 

 used to declare, as many vertebrae as a crocodile,* and 

 Colonel Wyndham whose size and superiority in the 

 saddle I have already mentioned, hesitated a week 

 before he bought his famous black mare, the most 

 brilliant hunter he ever possessed, because she was at 

 least three inches too long behind the saddle ! 



I remember also seeing the late Lord Mayo ride 

 fairly away from a Pytchley field, no easy task, between 

 Lilbourne and Cold Ashby, on a horse that except for 

 its enormous depth of girth, arguing unfailing wind, 

 seemed to have no good points whatever to catch the 

 eye. It was tall, narrow, plain-headed, with very bad 

 shoulders, and very long legs, all this to carry at least 

 eighteen stone ; but it was nearly, if not quite, thorough- 

 bred. 



We need hardly dwell on the advantages of speed and 

 endurance, inherited from the Arab, and improved, as we 

 fondly hope, almost to perfection, through the culture of 

 many generations, while even the fine temper of the 

 " desert-born " has not been so warped by the tricks of 



