THE RIDER. 213 



view a fox, till you are quite certain it is the fox, and even then 

 it will do no harm ' to count twenty,' like Mr. Jorrocks, before 

 you ejaculate. Even when hounds are at fault, to get their heads 

 up is so much easier than to get them down again ; and they, 

 remember, are even more excited than you are. These are 

 simple rules, within the compass of everyone's observance ; 

 but they are as sound as they are simple. 



Whyte-Melville in his ' Riding Recollections ' has devoted 

 a chapter to the abuse of the spur, and he quotes the very high 

 authority of George Fordham on his side. That admirable race 

 rider, he says, 'wholly repudiates the tormentors,' arguing that 

 they only make a horse shorten his stride, and 'shut up,' to use 

 an expressive term, instead of struggling gallantly home. No 

 doubt spurs are capable of abuse like everything else, whether 

 it be an instrument of pleasure or pain. No doubt, too, a very 

 young rider had better be allowed to chide his steed with an 

 unarmed heel, especially if he propose to arm it with those 

 monstrous lances the young Nimrods of the day delight to equip 

 themselves with. But spurs unquestionably have their use. With 

 a sulky or an ill-tempered horse, sometimes even with a timid 

 one, they are often most effectual. They have, moreover, two 

 advantages over the whip : firstly, they can be used without 

 diminishing the strength of your grasp on the rein ; secondly, 

 they can be used without giving the horse any warning of your 

 intentions, while the mere act of taking up the whip will often 

 change a dubious refusal into a certain one. Still they should 

 always be used sparingly. The rowels of hunting spurs as 

 now worn are no puny weapons, and with a generous horse the 

 slightest touch of the sharp steel should be sufficient. Horses, 

 as a rule, want control rather than coercion in the hunting field. 

 But every rule has its exception, and even the freest and 

 boldest horse will, like Homer, sometimes nod. When a stimulus 

 is to be applied, or punishment inflicted, those means are the 

 best which do their work quickest and with least display. In 

 both these points the spur is supreme. Whyte-Melville hints 

 that there is danger, in the case of a fall, of the buckle of the 



