154 HACKS AND HUNTERS 



top of one bank to the other. All the banks are 

 jumped almost from a standstill; t*he horses leaping 

 at rather than on or over them, and climbing up them 

 like flies crawling up a wall. At the top they change 

 their feet and slide down the other side before jumping 

 the drain at the bottom, in very much the same way 

 that the Italian cavalry negotiate steep hills. In 

 Irish horse shows, this proper changing of the feet at 

 the top of a bank is of utmost importance, and a horse 

 is scored on the way he does it, much in the way 

 "ticks" are counted in this country. Owing to the 

 fact that the least touch may bring a horse jumping 

 a bank over on top of the rider, the snaffle bridle is 

 almost entirely used, and although I have heard said 

 to the contrary, from personal experience I found that 

 the best and safest way to negotiate an Irish bank is 

 to give the horse his head entirely and sit him very 

 much as you might a rearer. Wide banks, some of 

 which are wide enough to enable two or three men to 

 walk on them abreast, although more formidable in 

 appearance than the narrow ones, are in reality far 

 easier and safer to jump, for they give a foothold to 

 the horse and enable him to change his legs prior to 

 descending, whereas the narrow ones crumble away 

 at a touch. 



Every horse that jumps over a drain pulls a bit of 

 the turf away with him, and it stands to reason that 

 the drain thus becomes wider and wider, and conse- 

 quently those in the first flight have it easier than those 

 behind, in direct contrast to hunting over a timber or 

 a hedge country, where rails become broken and gaps 

 appear. These Irish drains, on one or both sides of a 

 bank, are as much as ten and twelve feet wide, and so 

 deep that a horse and rider can r.ide up and down the 



