54 MEMOIR OF THE KILKENNY HUNT. 



" Johnny Gurteen," to distinguish him from his 

 brother-in-law, Mr. John Power of Kilfane, was 

 probably the hardest rider of the field. In fact, he 

 was a reckless rider, and utterly fearless. He used 

 to keep twenty horses at the Club-house, Kilkenny, 

 during the season, and hunted six days a week. 

 There were numerous stories as to his riding, but 

 one, related to the Compiler by an eye-witness about 

 a year since, will serve as a specimen. Hounds were 

 running hard one day across a demesne in the Kil- 

 kenny country the exact locality forgotten when 

 they reached a masonwork wall bounding the place, 

 got over, and of course went on. The field was 

 apparently pounded ; but Mr. Power of Gurteen, 

 coming up in the front rank, espied a place in the 

 wall where stones had been loosened, and which, 

 with a bold horse, would have been just jumpable, 

 had it not been that a strong bough of a tree, grow- 

 ing by the wall, stretched straight over the place, and 

 made it apparent that any rider attempting to jump 

 must be swept out of the saddle. Without one 

 moment's hesitation, however, Mr. Power went slap 

 for the place, and, as his horse rose at it, threw him- 

 self clean back till his hat almost touched the horse's 

 tail, in that position got safely over, and swinging 

 himself up again on landing, never lost one yard of 

 his place with hounds, the remainder of the field 

 having to seek some other means of exit. On 

 another occasion he was nearly killed in jumping 

 over a high wall into a farmyard at the bottom of 

 Ballykecffe wood. Major I/od and his son, the late 

 Mr. L. N. Izod, attended fairly often. The former kept 



