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f rom the hedge . 



We were on it before I saw it, and he stopped dead. 

 I sat there and thought. I did not want a fight the 

 first day I rode him yet I could hardly believe he would 

 want more than a little pressure of the knee to make 

 him ral over it. I applied the pressure, but any walk- 

 ing he did was back'" . I ;ot on to him directly 

 after breakfast - the place was within a quarter of a 

 mile of my house - and he crossed that ditch, if you could 

 call it a ditch, just in time to enable vie to get back to 

 lunch. I never knocked him about, but I kept 

 at him all the time. The next time I had him in th 

 field a very heav - nded lad was walking him about, and 

 on a call from me he turned him quickly round near a 



de fence." The horse thought he was meant to .lump 

 it, and before the 1 . could stop him bounded ove . It 

 shbwec Lie he had learnt his lesson; he wa i ever any 

 trouble again and carried me well to hounds. 



Another refuser, on which I had a quick success, 

 gave far less trouble, and with kin i J a clear case 

 of refusing from fear of the bit. friend of mine 

 asked me to ride this young one, as it had been refusing 

 badl^ with his Is . He himself had not ridden it, as 

 it was not up to his Lght. , my friend, the owner, 

 always seemed to me to overbit his horses. He had fine 



it hands and they went all right with hi , but I 

 thought it probable that his groom carried out the over- 

 bitting without the light hands that compensated for it. 

 So I asked to have the young one sent out for me in a 

 plain snaffle, which was done. 



The first little fence I rode him at he refused six 

 times. Luckily for me, hounds were running very slowly 

 and checking in almost every field. He refused the 

 next few fences, but each one less often and with less 

 determination. The last of about half a do?,en small 

 fences he only refused once, and for the rest of the day 

 never turned his he- . When next I rode him we got 

 penned in a lane at the very start of a hunt, and a man 

 began refusing at the only available place in the fence 

 out of it . I was next to him and shouted out: "Come 

 out of the way; I know mine will 50!" - a cheerful and 

 optimistic view of the case which I was far from feeli ■ ■■ . 

 Still, it would have been no good saying: "If you will 

 allow me to try-, there is just a vague chance mine might 

 go." But go he did, and never turned his heai L . 



