122 THE HUNTING FIELD 



him again ; it therefore seems the height of softness 

 and absurdity for a master to put up with the not 

 uncommon answer to a message that he wants to 

 see his horses, that the stable " is shut up." This is 

 carrying the mystery and humbug of the racing stable 

 into the hunting one. It may be right, and necessary 

 in the racing stable ; we don't pretend to give an 

 opinion on that point ; but in nine cases out of ten 

 it is sheer humbug as applied to hunters. Many a 

 man, we believe, has been choked off hunting by the 

 over condition of his horses. Some Grooms have but 

 one system — the very tip-top condition, good nerves, 

 bad nerves, or no nerves at all. First-rate, race-horse 

 condition may be all very well for Sir Rasper 

 Smashgate, who rides fourteen stone, with the nerves 

 of a Roman gladiator, but for little Paul Poplin, it is 

 nothing short of cruelty to put him on an over fresh 

 horse — cruelty the most refined, for you make the 

 poor victim pay for his suffering. What can be more 

 humiliating to a man of " taste, enterprise, and spirit," 

 as the old "Sporting Magazine" used to put on its 

 title page, than being hurried here, there, and every- 

 where, knocked against gate-posts, dashed among 

 trees, bumped against acquaintance, by an impetuous, 

 overbearing, resolute horse, that the Groom has been 

 coddling and spicing for the show off on this particular 

 day. Horrid reflection, when there are five or six 

 more waiting their turns to do the same thing ! 



In hiring a Groom, as in buying a horse, it is very 

 material to see whether they are adapted to the work 

 we intend to put them to. Hunters are not like 

 carriage or park horses, that can be kept for show with 

 impunity, and it is no use a man hiring a Stud Groom 

 and buying six or eight horses merely because he 

 happens to have plenty of money, when a less aspiring 

 servant, with fewer nags, would make him much more 

 comfortable. He had better lay his money out in 

 plate, or in some less troublesome article than hunters. 



