

THE HORSE. 173 



declared by Sir Richard Sutton, then hunting the former pack, 

 to be one of the best animals he ever saw cross Leicestershire. 

 If the portrait tell truth, no man certainly would have bought 

 Unknown for his shape, to say nothing of the fact that he was 

 under fifteen hands high. One of the first points a buyer looks 

 at in a horse required to carry weight is the back. When the 

 nature of the horse's anatomy is considered, and the position of 

 the saddle, it will be clear that a back disproportionately long 

 is, to say the least, not the one thing needful. Yet Why te- Mel- 

 ville tells us that the best hunter owned by each of the three 

 heaviest men he ever saw ride perfectly straight to hounds had 

 that fault. These were Sober Robin, owned by Mr. Richard 

 Gurney, who rode twenty stone ; a bay horse belonging to Mr. 

 Wood, of Brixworth Hall, who was no lighter, and used to vow 

 his horse * had as many vertebrae as a crocodile ; ' and a black 

 mare, belonging to Colonel Wyndham, at least three inches too 

 long behind the saddle. ' I remember also,' he adds, ' seeing 

 the late Lord Mayo ride fairly away from a Pytchley field, no 

 easy task between Lilbourne and Cold Ashby, on a horse that, 

 except for its enormous depth of girth arguing unfailing wind, 

 seemed to have no good points whatever to catch the eye. 

 It was tall, narrow, plain-headed, with very bad shoulders and 

 very long legs, all this to carry at least eighteen stone ; but it 

 was nearly, if not quite, thorough-bred? Certainly no good 

 horse, no horse at all one might say, could well have a more 

 extensive collection of bad points than this. The bad shoulders, 

 for instance ; what man, unless he 'knew something,' would buy 

 a horse to ride, let alone to ride to hounds, with bad shoulders, 

 the very first qualification, as is universally agreed, for carrying a 

 saddle with comfort and safety to its occupant ? Emblem, that 

 famous steeplechasing mare, was saved by her shoulders. With 

 her light middle-piece, and badly ribbed-up, she was anything 

 but a promising beast to the eye. Yet she won the Birmingham, 

 Derby, Liverpool, Doncaster, and Cheltenham Steeplechases 

 in 1863, and in 1865 the Leamington and Cheltenham Grand 

 Annuals. 'She won her steeplechases,' wrote her owner, Lord 



