ii8 Cross Country with Horse and Hound 



qualifying. That more impetus is required to make a 

 broad than a high jump, it is reasonable to suppose ; but a 

 too long or a too fast start is as apt to defeat one's ends as 

 going too slow is. If a horse has speed and impetus enough 

 to carry him over say twenty feet of water, as no doubt he 

 has when racing at it full speed, the trouble may be, never- 

 theless, that although he has only to lift his feet and let 

 the momentum do the rest, he feels that his muscular force 

 has been spent in running. He has not enough left, or 

 cannot collect what he has forcibly enough, and so refuses 

 or drops aimlessly into the middle of the stream. If, on 

 the contrary, he had but taken a shorter stride, he might 

 have cleared it. Any one who has practised broad jump- 

 ing will know exactly what I mean by this particular diffi- 

 culty. There is such a thing as going back too far and 

 coming at the water too fast when one could have done 

 quite as well perhaps from a standstill. There must always 

 be a reserve force in your horse for the spring. When a 

 horse is brought up to within three or four strides of the 

 obstacle, well in hand, he can better judge his distance, 

 whether over a fence or across a bit of water. 



There is also at least one exception to the rule that one 

 should go slow at timber ; when, namely, there is a ditch 

 on the opposite side. 



In " Forty-five Years of Sport " James Henry Corballis 

 says : " A horse can jump bigger and better when ridden at 

 a moderate pace. I have trained many of my horses," he 

 continues, " to jump so big from a stand that they couid 

 accomplish fences which were impossible to fly ; and in a 

 close, cramped country such training is most invaluable. 



