196 HACKS AND HUNTERS 



we occasionally have judges who look after these things, 

 or the exhibitors rise in a body and take the matter in 

 their own hands, but it is rightly the duty of the com- 

 mittee and should not be shirked by them. 



I would also meekly suggest that if horse-show com- 

 mittees wish to please both spectators and exhibitors, 

 they put the jumping and hunting classes at more 

 advantageous times on the programme, instead of rele- 

 gating them either to the opening class of the show, to 

 meal-hours, or to the very end, when the riders are tired 

 and most of the spectators have gone home. At some 

 shows the jumpers perform for an empty house, and 

 when the last class comes, even the exhibitors and the 

 judges themselves are yawning and wishing the thing 

 over. There is always so much chat about it being diffi- 

 cult to have the jumps carried in and out and set up in 

 the middle of a session, but there is no reason why time 

 should not be allowed on the programme for this, in 

 order that the general public, who like to see the jump- 

 ing, may have an occasional view of it. If, as it is often 

 argued, these classes are put early and late on purpose 

 to draw the crowd and keep them longer, then all I 

 have to say is that if the saddle classes can't hold the 

 audience on their own merits, let them do without an 

 audience; there is certainly no reason why the jump- 

 ing horse should always be the goat. 



Another suggestion is regarding the wording of the 

 hunter championship class. As it now stands, either 

 the winners jump against each other, in which case 

 an element of luck enters in (since even the most 

 consistent performer of the show might possibly 

 make a mistake in this one class), or else the horses 

 are not required to jump and the class becomes a 

 "model" class, pure and simple, and the handsomest 



