66 THE LIFE OF A HUNTER 



success in the prize-ring to the custom of 

 judges not to get up and ride ladies' hacks, 

 it would ill become me to decry the system. 



Some people would say that instead of 

 being kept up all the summer, it would 

 have been better for me to have been 

 turned out at grass. I have my own de- 

 cided opinions on this question, having 

 had experience of both systems. I certainly 

 do not think it right to keep a hunter in 

 hard work from the end of one season to 

 the beginning of another. At the close of 

 the season, shoes should be taken off, and 

 the horse be turned into a loose-box with 

 a yard, and bedded down with tan and 

 sawdust, if not with straw. There he 

 should have six weeks' repose. After that, 

 there is no harm in taking him up, if he 



