Timber and Water yuMPiNC. 447 



There are several points about timber-jumping which it is important the horseman in 

 his first season should bear in mind. 



It does not follow at all that because a horse will clear six feet when fresh from his stable 

 he will do five or even four feet cleverly at the end or in the middle of a really good run. 

 Coarse-bred cobs may be found that will do extraordinary things in the way of high jumps 

 in a riding-school, at a horse-show, or in a slow run with harriers, yet would shut up after 

 galloping half a dozen fields at full speed in a stone-wall country, or over a long line of 

 stiles and locked gates, such as may be found in Gloucestershire or Warwickshire. If a young 

 horse will jump four feet six inches freely, and in good form, it is not wise to torment him, 

 by trying how high he can jump until he refuses or falls. Reserve the experience until the 

 time comes when you must, with hounds running, and you and your horse, hot with excite- 

 ment, either fly park palings, or high locked gates, or be left in the lurch. 



If, like many capital old hunters, a horse which is a very big jumper is tender on his 

 fore feet, he should not be taken out when the ground is very hard. There are horses that 

 will gallop in dirt over their fetlocks, and fly their fences in the most delightful manner, that 

 will tremble, sweat, and refuse sheep-hurdles, when the ground has been dried hard by March 

 winds. 



It is a very pernicious practice to leap a horse backward and forward over the same 

 place^alone, in cold blood. If he is sensible, he feels that you are making a fool of him ; 

 if he is inclined to be sulky, it is a sure receipt for increasing the fault. 



Larking — that is, jumping real hunters without having hounds before them, merely to 

 show what they can do, or to show off before ladies — spoils many capital horses, causing 

 them finally to refuse. It is, if not advisable, excusable, when it assumes the form of a sort 

 of race over a short cut home after a dull or blank day ; then the horses, being in company, 

 get excited, and perhaps even believe that they are hunting. But very good horses are spoiled 

 by racing, because it teaches them to rush at, instead of measuring their fences. There is not 

 one steeplechase horse in a hundred that is worth a farthing as a hunter, because the busi- 

 ness of a steeplechaser is to get over the ground without a pause ; while the best hunters 

 and best hunting men make full use of " deliberation's artful aid " — although they do not 

 appear to dwell either in taking off or after landing — and only come with a rush when a 

 thick black bullfinch or a wide water-jump bars the way. Now, if a steeplechaser dwells one 

 second unnecessarily at thirty fences, that makes half a minute — nothing in hunting, everything 

 in a race. 



As high, stiff timber is the most dangerous to horsemen, so wide water is most fatal to 

 horses ; and yet, theoretically, water is the safest and easiest of all leaps if — there is great 

 virtue in "if" — the landing and taking off are sound. 



Blood horses that really like water scarcely increase their natural stride to cover any 

 ordinary brook. But few horses like water. If a horse has tumbled over a rail he may 

 jump higher at the next ; but if a horse, by his own or his rider's fault, jumps short, and gets 

 into deep water, it is very difficult to get him to face a brook again ; and when a horse sees 

 the water, and gradually refuses—" shuts up " is the professional phrase — no horseman in the 

 world can get him over a wide place — unless in a boat. 



There is no way in which hunters break their backs so often as in jumping at a brook. 

 If they fail to land with their hind legs, the weight of the rider breaks or fatally strains the 

 spine. 



The reason that brooks of even moderate width — say fifteen or sixteen feet (a distance 



