Dublin Horse Skozv. 303 



stand, for the trivial bank, would add to the variety of the 

 fences, and would consequently improve the course as a 

 means of testing the jumping capabilities of the animals. 

 He informed me that such obstacles were not put up, 

 because they were not met with out hunting in Ireland. I 

 urged that they were often encountered in England, which 

 was a great market for the sale of Irish hunters ; that the 

 fact of a hunter being a good timber jumper would add to his 

 price ; and that, consequently, a gate or post and rails, say 

 4 feet high, would be a useful and legitimate test. He said 

 that I talked nonsense, and that if my advice were acted 

 upon, the majority of the horses would break their necks. I 

 pleaded that it was easy to teach any ordinary horse to jump 

 a gate ; and that I would be only too happy to show him 

 how it could be done. He replied that he did not want to 

 see ; because he knew everything about breaking, and had, 

 in fact, written an article on that subject in a certain book, 

 I congratulated him on being the only man in the world who 

 had ever reached finality in any art ; and went away thinking 

 that if such be the kind of instructor, it is no wonder that 

 Irish horses are, as a rule, badly broken. 



Although the jumping was good, the two things that 

 pleased us most in the show, were the riding and the great 

 personal interest taken in the leaping competitions by the 

 large majority of the thousands who were present. Almost 

 everyone of the spectators knew some, if not all, of the 

 horses and riders, and keenly and intelligently criticised the 

 good and bad points of the men and animals. I was proud 

 of my countrymen's love of horses, and contrasted it with the 

 lukewarm feeling entertained by the inhabitants of London 

 about that subject, apart from betting. The ' dash ' with which 

 the men rode (there were no ladies among the competitors) 

 was in marked contrast to the hold-him-tight-by-the-head 

 style usually adopted at Islington. 



After a trip to the county of Cork, we returned to England 

 and went to Paris with the idea of learning all we could 



