THE CHACE. 
increased, unless their followers ride speedy, and, for the 
most part, thorough-bred horses, they cannot see out a 
run of any continuance if the scent lies well. True it 
is that, at the present time, every Leicestershire hunter 
is not thorough-bred ; but what is termed the cock-tail, 
or half-bred horse of this day, is a very different animal 
from that of a hundred years back. In those days, a 
cross between the thorough-bred, or perhaps not quite 
thorough-bred, horse, and the common draught-mare, 
was considered good enough to produce hunters equal 
to the speed of the hounds then used. There was not 
such an abundance of what may be termed the inter- 
mediate variety of the horse in the country " pretty 
well-bred on each side the head" which has of late 
years been in demand for the fast coaches of England, 
in which low-bred horses have no chance to live. 
Mares of this variety, put to thorough-bred stallions, and 
their produce crossed with pure blood, create the sort of 
animal that comes now under the denomination of the 
half-bred English hunter, or cock-tail. These are 
also the horses which contend for our several valuable 
stakes, made for horses not thorough-bred, though, 
when brought to the post, they are sometimes so much 
like race-horses in their appearance and their pace, that 
it would be difficult to detect the blot in their pedigree. 
A prejudice long existed against thorough-bred horses 
for the field, particularly such as had once been trained 
to the course ; and in some quarters it still lingers. It 
is argued by their opponents that the thinness of their 
