FIRST-HAND BITS OF STABLE LORE 



A good weight-carrying horse is an easier ani- 

 mal to find than one would imagine, if one will 

 but abandon the untenable argument that lofti- 

 ness and avoirdupois have necessarily anything 

 whatever to do with such ability. These huge 

 brutes of sixteen hands and upward have just 

 two solitary points in their favor, — they are 

 more proportionate, if their bulky riders be also 

 very tall, and they make the fences look smaller. 

 They are not as active as the smaller animal ; 

 their own body-weight is generally an uncomfort- 

 able impost, after hounds really run, and when 

 the ground, — as seldom is the case in America, 

 because of the seasons at which we hunt, — affords 

 heavy going ; their size is generally a guarantee 

 that, close up, there is a cross of the coldest kind 

 of blood ; their clumsiness, normally objection- 

 able, is overwhelming when exhaustion impends, 

 and they weigh a lot when the worst has come to 

 pass, and you are trying to keep them off your 

 wish-bone ! Again the average heavy weight is 

 short and — well, plump; and these tall beasts 

 are as insurmountable as a mountain range when 

 embarkation is at hand, and about as altitudinous 

 to fall from. They are, also, perforce, too thick 

 through for a short and stout man to ride com- 



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