CHAPTER IX 

 HUNTING 



"Boys to the Hunting field 

 Though 'tis November, 

 The wind's in the south, 



But a word ere we start : 

 However excited, you'll please to remember, 

 That hunting's a science and riding 's an art; 

 The fox takes precedence of all from the covert. 

 The hunter's an animal purposely bred 

 After the pack to be ridden, not over ; 

 Hounds were not reared to be knocked on the head." 



On the principle, I suppose, that we should all learn 

 something of everything, and everything of some- 

 thing, we find that although many riders have a smat- 

 tering of the different branches of horsemanship, but 

 few excel in more than one line. In the show ring 

 we notice that, with but few exceptions, the crack 

 riders of saddle horses rarely compete over the jumps, 

 and, for that matter, even those who can jump a horse 

 cleverly are not by that same token necessarily good 

 cross-country riders. On the other hand, hunting men 

 and women are, as a rule, deficient in the knowledge 

 of that technic which enables them to show a horse 

 with success, but they do possess, in order to ride 

 across country well, quick judgment, natural common 

 sense, a good eye for a jump and for a country. They 

 must be able, almost the moment they jump into a 

 field, to know instinctively where to get out; they must 

 be a good judge of pace, be sufficiently versed in horse- 

 manship to understand how to get every ounce out of 



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