Finishing the Horse. 113 



by an animal which is not perfectly able to 

 clear an ordinary hedge and ditch. No horse 

 is therefore fit to be called a hunter which is 

 not a steady and practised leaper. 



Begin by teaching your horse how to exert 

 his natural powers of leaping. It is true that 

 any active horse knows how to gallop over a 

 fence, if frightened or forced into doing so. 

 But there are very few young horses, and not 

 very many old hunters, who know how to 

 execute a high standing jump. In order to 

 do this, a horse must have learnt by expe- 

 rience how to sink upon his haunches and 

 bound into the air ; and this is a knack which, 

 simple and natural as in itself it is, he will 

 never acquire so long as he is compelled or 

 allowed to practise leaping in a state of alarm 

 or excitement. And yet every sportsman 

 knows that there are many hunting countries 

 in which no man who values his life would 

 think of riding a mere flying jumper, and that 

 there are none in which a steady standing 

 jumper is not often exceedingly useful. 



There is, for instance, no English county 

 in which the ordinary five- barred gate is not 

 very common. The height of an average 

 i 



