206 HUNTING. 



other side. 1 Your point of vision is higher than his, and 

 often the uncertainty becomes to you a certainty sooner than 

 it does to him. You must be prepared therefore to stop him 

 almost in the last stride if necessary, or at any rate to turn 

 him, and this no man can do, however fine the mouth he has to 

 deal with, however strong his own grasp, if he rides at his fences 

 in that loose-reined fly-away fashion our elder painters were so 

 fond of depicting. But supposing both rider and horse are 

 willing to go, and the latter has proved his ability, then let the 

 former leave him alone. A wise old rider was wont to say, 

 * People talk about size and shape, shoulders, quarters, blood, 

 bone and muscle, but for my part give me a hunter with brains. 

 He has to take care of the biggest fool of the two, and think for 

 both ! ' A young rider will do well to bear this saying in mind, 

 and believe that his horse knows more about the business than 

 he does. Many of us have seen wonderful feats wrought in the 

 hunting field by human hands, more of us have read of them : 

 horses all fire and fury made handy as poodles, sure-footed as 

 cats, creeping up and down banks, squeezing between trees, and 

 tripping in and out between doubles, crawling here, flying there, 

 turned on half-a-crown, as the saying goes, managed almost like 

 horses in a circus. Such things can be done, are done every 

 day ; but such things, Oh young rider, you were best to believe 

 as yet ' are not for thee.' 



If your horse be well-fed, and in blooming condition, 

 Well up to the country and up to your weight ; 

 O, then give the reins to your youthful ambition, 

 Sit down in the saddle and keep his head straight. 



1 A remarkable instance of this prophetic instinct is thus given by ' The 

 Druid.' 'As regards leaping, one of the cleverest things we remember was 

 done some years since by a Belzoni-bred hunter who had never been known to 

 refuse a fence before. A lad of about fifteen was riding him as straight as an 

 arrow to hounds, and put him at an apparently easy bank and rails, when he 

 suddenly closed up in his stride about twenty yards from it, and refused to face 

 it. On examination there proved to be an old stone quarry on the other side ; 

 the lad thought it a good joke, but the horse lost all his jumping nerve from 

 that hour.' The Post and the Paddock, ch. xiii. 



