THE HUNTER. IOy 



fashionable lineage, and everyone who has attended the blood- 

 stock sales must have heard Mr. Tattersall trying to obtain a 

 bid of 20 or 25 guineas for a yearling by some unknown sire, 

 and out of a dam who has not yet made a name for herself. 

 When these youngsters come to more mature years, and turn 

 out too slow for racing, they find their way into cabs, or are 

 sold at low prices for other work ; whereas had they been 

 treated in a manner calculated to fit them for becoming 

 hunters, they would, at four years' old, have been worth four 

 times the money that would be given for them as Turf failures. 



The embryo race-horse is trained, galloped, and tried, and 

 these processes sometimes result in rendering him unsound, 

 when of course he is practically valueless ; but under the 

 more gentle regime of the paddock and the hunting stable he 

 would never be asked to gallop as a two-year-old ; his work at 

 three years would be of a light description only, consequently 

 his frame would have time to get well set before it was taxed 

 by work. It is not, of course, pretended that every young 

 thoroughbred would remain sound, or make a valuable hunter ; 

 but it stands to reason that if they are not set to severe exer- 

 tion in their two-year-old days they have a greater chance 

 afforded them of growing into sound horses ; so that the pro- 

 portion of failures owing to breaking down must be smaller 

 than in the racing stable. When the time comes for the 

 future hunter to be schooled over a natural country a fresh set 

 of risks begin. He may break his back at some little ditch, 

 or otherwise injure himself; or he may be unable to stand the 

 strain jumping puts upon his legs ; but these things have to 

 be chanced with every horse, thoroughbred or not. 



So long as we deal with thoroughbred animals alone, 

 whether they be horses, cattle, sheep, or dogs, we may breed 

 to type; but directly we come to crossing one breed with 

 another we are landed in a sea of uncertainty; We may have 

 a thoroughbred horse on the one side, and a good looking 

 hunter mare on the other : they are mated, and the produce 

 may be worth 100 at three years old, or it may be fit for 



