8 SPORTING REMINISCENCES 



his horse extended ; he was riding at a stranger 

 who was out. He must have known quite well 

 that it was a fence to take at a trot, and I think if 

 he had been my man he might have returned to 

 England. Full gallop, the horses side by side. 

 Old Sarsefield took hedge, lane and far ditch, 

 clearing 27 J feet. The horse beside him got as 

 far as the ditch and broke his neck. 



That was later on when I used to ride Sarsefield 

 myself, and I had been promoted to the side-saddle. 

 He took great care of me. 



My mother's side-saddle was quite a wonderful 

 thing and weighed two stone. It had pockets, 

 about three lots of horns, and quiltings and pad- 

 dings innumerable. Mine, which, as I have said, 

 appeared in my room on my eighth birthday, would 

 have held two little girls of my size, but I know that 

 my Champion and Wilton or Owen saddles have 

 never given me so much joy as this wadded second- 

 hand lump of leather and iron. The saddle came 

 at our little cottage Ardsollus, in Clare, a place I 

 looked on as an earthly paradise. A trout stream 

 ran close to it, preserved in those days. The 

 crags where one could get lost stretched beyond 

 the railway line to Ennis. Crags which held wild 

 strawberries, and what the men called harts ; 

 then in autumn nuts in thousands. But directly 

 the saddle appeared, Hewitt taught me to sit in 

 over fences ; this strictly against all orders. 



"You sit back, Miss, and you'll drop down to 



