FIRST-HAND BITS OF STABLE LORE 



A good weight-carrying horse is an easier ani- 

 mal to find than one would imagine, if one will 

 but abandon the untenable argument that lofti- 

 ness and avoirdupois have necessarily anything 

 whatever to do with such ability. These huge 

 brutes of sixteen hands and upward have just 

 two solitary points in their favor, they are 

 more proportionate, if their bulky riders be also 

 very tall, and they make the fences look smaller. 

 They are not as active as the smaller animal ; 

 their own body-weight is generally an uncomfort- 

 able impost, after hounds really run, and when 

 the ground, as seldom is the case in America, 

 because of the seasons at which we hunt, affords 

 heavy going; their size is generally a guarantee 

 that, close up, there is a cross of the coldest kind 

 of blood ; their clumsiness, normally objection- 

 able, is overwhelming when exhaustion impends, 

 and they weigh a lot when the worst has come to 

 pass, and you are trying to keep them off your 

 wish-bone ! Again the average heavy weight is 

 short and well, plump; and these tall beasts 

 are as insurmountable as a mountain range when 

 embarkation is at hand, and about as altitudinous 

 to fall from. They are, also, perforce, too thick 

 through for a short and stout man to ride com- 



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