204 THE SPORTING WORLD. 



then depended as much on a man knowing the 

 line of country well, and much more on his 

 horse jumping every description of fence he might 

 find in such line as his rider took him, than on 

 his actual speed. It was an amusement usually 

 got up at the end of the hunting season by 

 gentlemen, thus testing the capabilities of their 

 hunters, and showing their own in riding them. 

 Then the character of the steeple chaser was 

 easily defined. He was in fact a hunting man 

 with a little more love of fun, frolic, and 

 racing speculation than was found in the usual 

 run of fox-hunters, and still less in more quiet 

 hare-hunters. In fact the hunting man of those 

 days usually, more or less, eschewed anything in 

 the shape of racing ; it was a considerable time 

 before steeple-chasing became at all popular. 

 Farmers were averse to having their land ridden 

 over, and their fences damaged for a new sport 

 in which they felt neither interest or amuse- 

 ment. For it was not so much by the horses 



