Temperament. ' 207 



distinguished from " above themselves," but we have known horses fourteen years old which, 

 although perfectly docile with regular exercise, required "a man on them" after a few days' 

 idleness on corn and beans. 



This question of natural temperament is of the greatest possible importance in selecting 

 horses for those who are not practised horsemen or finished coachmen, who have not nerve, 

 strength, and practice. When you are young, bold, confident, experienced, in " fit " condition, 

 nothing is more delightful than to mount and master violence, whether arising from high spirits 

 and high courage, or naturally bad temper. 



The great sporting novelist of our day has admirably described the two opposite tempera- 

 ments in two thoroughbred hunters of the highest steeplechasing class. A young dragoon 

 goes to an Irish farmer to see an untried mare : and here is a scene drawn by a master hand 

 — a first flight man in Northamptonshire and many other countries : — 



" Over the rough paved yard, through the stone gap by the peat stack, not the little 

 cropped jackass himself could have behaved more soberly ; but where the spring flowers were 

 peeping in the turf enclosure beyond, and the upright bank blazed in its golden glory of gorse 

 bloom, the devilry of many ancestors seem to pass with the keen mountain air into the filly's 

 mettle. Her first plunge of hilarity and insubordination would have unseated half the rough- 

 riders that ever m.is-handled a charger in the school. Once, twice, she reached forward with 

 long powerful plunges, shaking her ears and dashing wildly at her bridle, till she got rein 

 enough to stick her nose in the air, and break away at speed. A snaffle, with or without a 

 nose-band, is scarcely the instrument by which a violent animal can be brought on its haunches 

 at short notice. But Daisy was a consummate horseman, firm of seat and cool of temper, 

 with a head that never failed him, even when debarred from the proper use of his hands. 



" He could guide the mare, though incapable of controlling her, so he sent her at the 

 highest place in the fence before him ; and, fast as she was going, the active filly changed 

 her stride on the bank with the accuracy of a goat, landing lightly beyond, to scour away 

 once more like a frightened deer. ' You can jump,' said he, as she threw up the head that 

 had been in its right place hardly an instant, while she steadied herself for the leap, 'and I 

 believe you're a flyer ; but, by Jove, you're a rum one to steer ! ' 



" She was quite out of his hand again, and laid herself down to her work with the vigour 

 of a steam-engine ; the turf fleeted like falling water beneath those smooth, sweeping strides. 

 They were careering over an open, upland country, always slightly on the rise, till it grew to 

 a bleak, brown mountain, far away under the western sky. The enclosures were small ; but 

 notwithstanding the many formidable banks and ditches with which it was intersected, the 

 whole landscape wore that appearance of space and freedom so peculiar to Irish scenery, so 

 pleasing to the sportsman's eye. It looked like galloping, as they say ; though no horse, 

 without great jumping powers, could have gone two fields. It took a long Irish mile, at 

 racing pace, to bring the mare to her bridle ; and nothing but her unusual activity saved the 

 rider from half a dozen rattling falls during his perilous experiment. She bent her neck at 

 last, arid gave to her bit in a potato ground, and they arrived at that mutual understanding 

 which links together so mysteriously the intelligences of the horse and its rider." 



In the contrasting scene the hero's wife is in the first flight of a desperate stag-hunt in 

 the Vale of Aylesbury, and determined to keep it. 



" Norah roused Boneen ; that good little horse, bred and trained in Ireland, seemed to 

 combine the activity of a cat with the sagacious instinct of a dog. Like all of his blood, he 

 oily left off feeling lazy when his companions began to feel tired. * I could lead the hunt now 



