WSSXE TO GET A HuNTER. 43 1 



horses that you do not like until you get suited, and you can arrange to buy any of the 

 horses jobbed, at a price settled beforehand. It is not pleasant to be paying for the hire ol 

 three or four horses during a frost, but it is also unpleasant to have a stable full of horses ol 

 your own under the same circumstances. 



Good hunters may be jobbed from well-known dealers in London, Oxford, Cheltenham, 

 Wansford near Peterborough, and, in fact, in every hunting district. Oxford, Cheltenham, 

 and Windsor are the best places I know for hack hunters for men not over eleven stone. 

 When, after a trial, one of these has been found to suit, it is best to secure it at once for the 

 month or the season. At Barnstaple horses may be hired for hunting on Exmoor. 



Oxford and Cambridge will both be found desirable hunting quarters for novices during 

 the winter vacation, because there are plenty of clever horses to be hired at these Universities, 

 and in vacation time there is no one to ride them. Oxford is within reach of at least five 

 packs of fox-hounds, which leave nothing to be desired by any reasonable man. 



When a celebrated stud of hunters is sold by auction, they generally fetch more than 

 they ever do again if sold singly. Such sales afford opportunities of buying horses known to 

 be good hunters ; but in a long stud there are always a certain number of screws and brutes, 

 which fall to those trusting souls who buy blindfold. Only strong, practised horsemen buy 

 hunters without either a trial or a character. Although the most satisfactory way of choosing a 

 hunter is out of the hunting-field after a stiff run ; so much depends on the rider, that it by 

 no means follows that the horse that carried Farmer Thruster in the first flight will even go 

 at all with a novice. Some men have the knack of making every horse that can gallop, 

 gallop where, when, and as they please. 



Finally, if you have no friend on whom you can rely to choose your first stud of hunters, 

 the better plan is either to job or to place yourself in the hands of a dealer, with a limit as 

 to price. In any case, the beginner should buy only hunters who perfectly understand 

 their trade, and defer trusting himself on four-year-olds and unbroken hunters until he has 

 had a little experience ; for no extent of instruction, and no amount of pluck, will compensate 

 for want of experience in the hunting-field. 



There are, however, useful well-bred but not thoroughbred horses to be purchased at 

 times, four, five, six, and seven years old, which are capable of being made hunters if put into 

 proper hands. This is especially the case with half-bred horses not much over 15 hands high, 

 which have not fallen into the hands of owners with hunting tastes. Such animals may receive 

 an important preparation for the hunting-field at the hands of any young horseman in the 

 course of ordinary country rides, before being placed in the hands of the "hunter horse- 

 breaker." 



As before observed, the first business of a hunter is to gallop over rough ground with a 

 leg always to spare ; but there are capital horses, especially thoroughbreds, of defective educa- 

 tion, who would be in danger if a molehill of extra size came in their way, yet with practice 

 these often become first-rate, as I have found more than once. 



Whether a horse has come from a training stable, or has been passing his time in town 

 work, if he has the right shape and temper he may be made a hunter for some country or 

 other. The first stage is to teach him to walk — not on fine turf or Rotten Row, but where 

 there are all the varieties of texture of a country where the condition of sport is excellent 

 and of agriculture deplorable. Richmond Park is not a bad place for teaching a horse how 

 to walk. 



Begin by riding him daily and carefull}-, with a double bridle, for an hour at the most, at 



