56 Cross Country with Horse and Hound 



the ditch and out again, it will discover presently that it 

 can more easily jump the log or the ditch than go around. 

 Colts learn with astonishing quickness when they have 

 the example of their mothers before them. The dam 

 going over the obstacle first seems to give the colt the best 

 possible incentive to follow, and an incentive in a colt's 

 head is worth half a dozen stable-boys with half a dozen 

 whips at his heels. 



And look at the foal ever close in her wake. 



The young one is true to the breed ; 

 He judges his distance and knows how to take 

 Off, just in the right place, and he lands with a shake 



Of his head that shows courage and speed. 



It was purely an accident that led me to the adoption 

 of this system. A young horse who was being broken to 

 jump not taking kindly to his fences, an old mare in the 

 field was bridled and saddled to give the novice a lead. 

 The foal-at-foot was put out of sight in the barn-yard, but 

 broke out and joined her mother on the schooling-ground, 

 and, rather than separate them again, was allowed to remain. 

 We thought the foal would run around the wings of the 

 jumps ; but she would take no chances of being separated a 

 second time from her dam, and took all the jumps by the 

 mother's side. To make a long story short, the two colts 

 thus educated were the most natural cross-country horses I 

 ever saw. The younger one especially would, as a weanling, 

 jump back and forth over the bars in a runway of her 

 own accord for the sheer love of the sport. This was the 

 chance beginning of a system of training that has been 

 most successful in producing natural jumpers, as well as 



