Celebrities of the Past Thirty Years i 5 9 



travesty of a fair hunting jump, the guard- 

 railed ditch. Most of the people who have 

 opened the floodgates of their wrath upon me 

 for thus abusing the " open grave " have, I 

 honestly think, misunderstood my meaning. 

 It is altogether begging the question to ex- 

 claim, " Surely you don't object to a ditch 

 on the take-off* side of a fence ? " Of course 

 nobody objects to such an obstacle. But the 

 " grave " is not a ditch ; it is a long, sharply- 

 cut trench, with no natural growth to warn 

 a horse of what he has to do. At a Hunt 

 meeting in the Midlands some years ago I 

 assisted in marking out the course, and in 

 a fine line of stiff' hunting country, we were 

 enabled to get in two big ditches, or, to be 

 quite accurate, one ditch and one small brook, 

 both on the take-off' side of stout thorn fences. 

 No guard-rail was placed before either, and 

 with just upon fifty horses running — not one 

 from a training stable — we had not a single 

 fall, or even blunder, at either of them. No, 

 it just comes to this, that if natural ditches 

 can be obtained in the course no objection 



