152 HACKS AND HUNTERS 



Wide brooks are also often met with in the Shires, 

 among which the Whissendine is the most famous, 

 in parts being eight feet and in others twenty-four feet 

 in width. To the American who has, perhaps, ridden 

 a show-ring jumper twenty odd feet over Harry Smith's 

 cardboard " Grafton" jump this may not seem much, 

 but it must not be forgotten that in the hunting field 

 jumping an unknown brook, possibly from a treacher- 

 ous take off, at the end of a long day, is quite another 

 matter. The precept, "fast at water and slow at 

 timber" has, as we have already seen elsewhere, been 

 often overdone as regards the latter, and we can as 

 easily overdo it in negotiating water. Of course, more 

 speed is required successfully to jump width than 

 height, but the horse must not be so extended that he 

 has insufficient reserve energy left at the last stride to 

 propel him over the distance. In urging him on, a 

 spur, not the whip, should be used. The latter has, 

 contrary to the general supposition, the effect of short- 

 ening rather than lengthening an animal's stride. 

 This, therefore, applies to jumping great width in the 

 show rings as well as in the open, and it is the good 

 advice I received, not to carry a whip, that enabled me, 

 several years ago, to make a gray mare of mine clear 

 twenty-seven feet in breadth.* 



Of course fences in England vary, as elsewhere, in 

 height and stiffness and type, according to the dis- 

 trict in which one happens to be hunting. In Cheshire, 

 for example, although the going is often rough, and the 

 fences " trappy, " they are smaller than in the Mid- 

 lands, for in the latter counties the main industry is 

 raising horses and bullocks, who require stronger and 



* The record is, I believe, thirty-nine feet, a distance cleared by 

 the great mare "Lottery," in the Liverpool Grand National. 





