;5<s() RIDING TO MOUNDS 



water, and one more struggle would have drowned hiui. By the 

 direction, however, of some old sportsmen who were present, a 

 quantity of stirrup-leathers were buckled together, one of which was 

 secured around his neck, and he was pulled out by his head, and 

 thus his life was preserved. 



In leaping a wide brook, a horse must spring a certain height, or 

 the joint weight of himself and his rider would luring him too soon 

 to the ground. The momentum, however, has a good deal to do 

 with it ; for which reason a man should always ride at a brook at a 

 quick pace, holding his horse fast by the head, sticking the needles 

 well into his sides, and never letting him see it till he comes to it. 



Standing leapers — that is, horses which will only leap standing — 

 are now almost exploded, and are very unlit for l)rook-jumping. It 

 must, indeed, require no small degree of nerve to ride one of this 

 description over a good deep brook with hollow banks. Some years 

 since Mr. Eol^ert Canning bought a very magnificent horse, called 

 Parnassus, from the Earl of Stamford, who, though he leaped a 

 fence or two flying on the day he bought him, would always stand at 

 them afterwards— probably to be accounted for l^y his not liking 

 seventeen stone on his back ; and also, perhaps, the result of a little 

 of that reasoning faculty which the poet I alluded to has allowed to 

 these noble animals. It was astonishing, however, what brooks 

 Mr. Canning could get this horse over ; but the world is not peopled 

 with such riders as him, and standing jumpers are, generally 

 speaking, bad articles for fox-hunters. 



There is one method of riding to hounds most essential to getting 

 across enclosed countries, which the Melton men call " screwing.'' 

 This consists in forcing a horse through rough places, without 

 suffering him to jump — at least not more than sufficient to clear 

 tlie ditch, if there be one. Two things are requisite here — a fine 

 hand in the rider, and a disregard of being pricked in the horse. It 

 is on the latter account that thoroughbred horses so often fail in 

 making good hunters, as not one in twenty will bear pressing against 

 strong thorns, in consequence of their skins being so thin. With 

 men in the habit of riding to hounds, being thrown off' a horse, 

 unless the horse fall, is the last thing they dream of ; but I was 

 never so near it in my life as I was the other day, in trying to screw 



