142 A HUNTING CATECHISM 



never ridden in the shires, and have passed their 

 hunting career amongst small enclosures, do not 

 always attach sufficient importance to the posses- 

 sion of pace, and are apt to be enamoured of a 

 stiffly-built horse, that would be hopelessly tailed 

 oflP in the first five minutes of a good gallop in 

 the great grazing countries. It is often an uphill 

 task to try to persuade them that their selection 

 may not be the right one, and would probably be 

 well sold at from £90 to £120. Their imagina- 

 tion does not soar to a horse which is cheap at 

 £300, and they will overlook such a one in 

 favour of another which resembles something 

 that has carried them in safety over their own 

 sticky country at home. 



Their experience l)eing but limited, they are 

 usually the more likely to hold closely to their 

 opinions, and especially is this the case when 

 judging four-year-olds and unbroken young ones. 

 The riders that compose an ordinary field in 

 their own hunt also being usually numbered only 

 by " tens," they do not know what it is to thread 

 a way through the immense crowds that come out 

 in the fashionable countries ; and how fast it is 

 often necessary to gallop to catch the rapidly 

 vanishing pack, that literally are racing after the 

 fox when the scent is good. Being accustomed to 

 leisurely proceedings, they do not realise that the 

 steady, good, but slow horse that has carried them 

 safely to their own hounds does not represent the 

 perfection in hunters they have so contentedly 

 imagined it to be. In drawing the inimitable 

 character of Mr. Sawyer on his first visit to the 

 shires, the late Major Whyte-Melville portrayed 

 only too vividly the disillusionment that has 

 been experienced by many another keen rider 



