380 HARD FARE AND NOT FAIR. 



the Irish horse is constantly hunted at five, even 

 sometimes at four, and has before this generally done 

 a couple of years work in some other way : most of 

 the breeders are too poor to allow their colts to re- 

 main idle, so the Irish horse that may be a high 

 prized hunter in England was probably four years 

 before dragging a harrow in his native country. 



We should consider this a strange school for a 

 young horse intended for a hunter : it is nevertheless 

 done in Ireland, and many colts got by thorough- 

 bred horses out of hunting mares are constantly so 

 employed, nor are they at this age fed as they ought 

 to be. This I consider is one great reason why the 

 Irish horse seldom grows up the size of ours : he is in 

 short stinted in his growth, and drawn out of shape ; 

 it is remarked that these horses are generally done 

 up at eight or nine years old, while we have good 

 hunters at fourteen, many much older. The reason is 

 obvious : the Irish horse has worked as many years at 

 nine as ours have at twelve, worked much harder, 

 and part of that work, at an age when he was unfit 

 for any labour; nothing but his naturally good stamina 

 could have enabled him to have done it. Put one of 

 our high-bred horses to plough at two years old, and 

 see if he would be a hunter at five. 



It has of late years been the fashion to ride very 

 large horses as hunters. I did the same, and so well 

 was this known that no horse was ever shown me in 

 England under sixteen hands ; in fact, that was the 

 lowest standard height in my stables. What, then, was 

 my astonishment at seeing horses here of from fourteen 

 and a half to fifteen hands carrying fourteen or 

 fifteen stone through the deepest part of this coun- 

 try, not merely over monstrous high and wide fences, 



