1 64 HUNTING. 



infinite labour and long endurance, which is to be desired in our 

 hunting matches, I have not seen any horse to compare with the 

 English. He is of tolerable shape, strong, valiant, and durable. 



A contemporary, Michael Barratt, 1 writes pretty much in 

 the same strain, though ' for all general uses, for service (that 

 is, war), swiftness, and proud going, as well as for pleasure pace 

 as a gallant trot,' he thinks, ' the Barbary and the Turkey 

 stallions are the best.' But for 'toughness' he holds by the 

 English horse, a cross between one of the foreigners and an 

 English mare. 



Markham was the first to really distinguish the hunter from 

 other horses, to explain his points and qualities, and call atten- 

 tion to the particular circumstances necessary for his proper 

 breeding, training, and keeping. His remarks are worth con- 

 sidering ; entertaining of course, as all his writing, but also 

 very sensible (as, too, he generally is), and not very much 

 perhaps to be improved on by modern experts. 



Although some men hold an opinion that every horse which 

 can gallop may be made a hunting horse, and albeit we daily see 

 that many horses, which indeed can do no more but gallop (and that 

 not long together neither) are ordinarily used in this exercise of 

 hunting, yet I am of that mind, that if a horse has not some virtue 

 more than ordinary, as either in his swiftness, toughness, wind or 

 courage, that he is not worthy the name of a hunting horse, and 

 neither doth deserve the labour, cost, and good food which he must 

 eat, nor the grace to be employed in such an honourable pastime. 



Now therefore to save ill-employed cost, and the repentance 

 which follows hours that are in vain wasted, you shall (being ad- 

 mitted to pursue this pleasure) be exceeding careful in the choice of 

 that horse which you intend for hunting. For as before I told you 

 in the breeding of horses, some are good for service in the wars, 

 some for running, some for coach, some for cart, and some for the 

 hamper, now all these in their kind good, yet very few excellent in 

 general for all these uses whatsoever, and those few which are so 

 well compounded, both of mind and body, that they are fit for any 

 purpose, they only and none else are most excellent for hunting, as 

 having the strength of the war horse, the toughness of the hunting 



1 The Vineyard of Horsemanship, 1618. 



