84 THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 



the leaf, when all nature has a downward tendency. It 

 is at the close of autumn, after a horse has gone well 

 through his course of physic, that you must endeavour 

 to endow him with firmness and strength to support him 

 through the winter. When you consider what a hunter 

 is called upon to perform, it is not extraordinary that so 

 many fall, but that so few are killed, considering how 

 little attention is bestowed, in comparison with what is 

 required, to "prepare them properly for their work. 

 Nothing but the glorious uncertainty of sport, the acci- 

 dental circumstance of being out several times before 

 there is anything to be done, saves half the horses in a 

 provincial country from suffering the penalty of neglect 

 in training. I use the term training, because nothing 

 less than training will suffice. We all know that a race- 

 horse cannot be brought up to his form, or expected to 

 be fit to run, with less than three montlis of active pre- 

 paration. He is expected only to gallop his best over a 

 certain space, for the most part, of level turf We know- 

 the difficulty of preparing him properly for this, yet we 

 suddenly require a hunter to do ten times more, with one- 

 tenth part of the rehearsals in the part he has to perform. 

 Some people, it is true, ijidulge their horses with a look 

 at the beagles in October ; ride them a gallop, perhaps, 

 once in the week round the park ; and, in describing a 

 favourite to be still fat as a pig, and to have blown like 

 a porpoise, they will speak of his having plenty of flesh 

 to come off, and talk of his good case as of a matter of 

 congratulation to themselves. So it mio-ht have been 



