HISTORY OF THE KILDARE HUNT 



meet, sit down booted and spurred at four o'clock 

 in the afternoon, and remain in their chairs until 

 it was time to go to the meet. Hounds were still 

 slow, the conditioning of horses was not well 

 understood, and hunters generally were much dis- 

 tressed by heavy coats until the opening of the 

 nineteenth century, when clipping first came into 

 general vogue. Often only three trusted hounds, 

 corresponding to the tufters used in staghunting, 

 were sent into the covert, and hounds were handled 

 in much the same fashion as staghounds in Devon 

 and Somerset to-day. There was no difficulty in 

 getting the fox to break, as there were no foot- 

 people, and small fields at meets were the rule. 



The slow pace, however, made hard riding un- 

 necessary, and indeed impossible. Men rode to see 

 hounds work rather than to enjoy a gallop. Riding 

 straight was considered no virtue, knowledge of a 

 country was at a premium, and the horsemen best 

 posted in that knowledge were accustomed to see 

 most of the fun by making points. 



It can never be a matter of certainty when the 

 change from these older methods took place, but it 

 is safe to assign the middle of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury as the approximated date, and to accept Mr 

 Hugo Meynell as the prophet of the modern 

 school. It was that gentleman who succeeded Mr 

 Boothby in Leicestershire, and who founded 



