^6 FACT AGAIXST FICTION. 



This action, lumbering, short and rough, attaches to 

 the under-bred slow horse ; the splendid, smooth- 

 going, oily, far-striding use of the limbs are gifts 

 generally assigned to the well-born or thorough- 

 bred horse, and cannot be too highly prized. 



It is true, that you very often find more good 

 jumpers among what are called cocktails than you 

 do among a similar number of thorough-breds ; but 

 if you can teach or induce a racehorse to take to 

 fencing, and to coujdIc the w^illingness to jump with 

 his inborn powers of wind and speed, then you 

 arrive at perfection ; and hunters of this kind are to 

 ladies, or to hunting men, worth almost any price 

 that can be imagined, and they are the steeds that 

 ought to carry ladies when they grace an assembly, 

 ever the better for their presence. 



In concluding this chapter on Riding to Hounds, 

 it will not be deemed amiss for me to speak of the 

 manner and method of putting the horse at a fence* 



iVll the worst falls I have seen in my life 

 have been at small places, so small and evident 

 or fair, that the rider has regarded them with 

 contempt, and kept no vigilance over his horse. 

 Among the worst falls are those at blind small 

 places, when the horse has been an intemperate 



