THE ^^SCEEW.^^ 147 



how seldom met with. Many first-flight men would be 

 much disgusted if their favourite flyers were called 

 " screws ',^^ but I think I am on the safe side when I say 

 that^ out of twenty-five hunters selected at random from 

 (say) Melton stables, past their eighth year, and which 

 have been ridden regularly, and fairly hard, half a dozen 

 would be the outside number which could be passed by a 

 veterinary surgeon as sound in every respect ; and these 

 half-dozen might quite possibly be the worst hunters of 

 the lot. A horse who has done hard work must show it 

 somewhere. Anyone who doubts the truth of these 

 remarks may satisfy himself by having his aged hunters 

 led at the end of the bridle on stones, without any whip 

 or excitement ; if they all go just as they do on the soft, 

 he is a lucky man, and the exception that proves the rule 

 into the bargain. There are so many shortcomings in 

 the way of soundness that have no perceptible eefict on 

 the horse^s power of crossing a country. Eyes and wind, 

 of course, are indispensable; but how about legs and 

 feet ? He hits his legs ; are not boots accessible and 

 cheap, bandages still more so ? He has bad feet, even 

 chronic fever in them, or navicular disease -, his work is 

 all on the soft, and with careful shoeing he may go on 

 with even these diseases for a considerable time, and his 

 owner may not know of their presence. The groom takes 

 the horse on to the covert side ; he is sound when his 

 master mounts him, and is possibly not seen again — out 

 of the stable at any rate — if he belongs to one of the 

 modern order of fox-hunters, until it is his turn to hunt 

 again, by which time he is fit to go, though starting lame 

 or groggy as before. Side bones and ossified cartilages 

 do not stop a horse across country, but they make him 

 most unpleasant to ride on the road, even when he is not 



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