THE SPORTING WORLD. 79 



SO producing a few select individuals as exceptions 

 does not refute my statement that in a general 

 way a country squire is anything but a patron of 

 the turf. 



Let it be remembered that in saying so I 

 not only go back to my early boyhood but to 

 a period before that. 



In those days a hunting man, that is most 

 hunting men, would no more have dreamt of 

 buying a racehorse to make a hunter of than 

 they would a red deer. They were quite aware 

 of the racehorse's powers of speed, but in such 

 days such speed was uncalled for, it never struck 

 them that the same powers of motion that 

 enables the racehorse at speed to clear, for we 

 will say two hundred yards, twenty four or five 

 feet at each stroke, and for a few strides even 

 more than that, would enable him to take a 

 brook of a width our good ancestors seldom 

 ever contemplated the riding at ; they seemed to 

 consider that a horse could clear little more 



