276 Modern Riding and Horse Education 



competitions have been held for some years at most 

 of the agricuhural shows, but the successful horses 

 have generally done little else from year to year 

 but travel round the country picking up money 

 prizes, and few boita fide hunters have competed. 

 Without arguing at length the practical educational 

 value of making a horse into a show-jumper, I 

 would ask the reader whether he w^ould care to ride 

 a hunter who was in possession of the fact that every 

 fence in the country could be chanced with impunity. 

 That the show- jumper is aware of it when he per- 

 forms in the ring was well illustrated during the 

 first few days especially of the 1909 International 

 Horse Show at Olympia (London). Had the fences 

 been solid there would, without exaggeration, have 

 been at least a hundred falls a day, and some of 

 them really dangerous ones. It is true that most 

 of the foreign animals entered were said to be 

 " cross-country " horses, but this nearly always 

 means that they can negotiate a course of made 

 fences, which much experience has taught them the 

 evil effects of chancing. 



At San Sebastian (Spain) later in the year the 

 jumps were of a different caliber, and although in 



