304 HUNTING PRELIMINARIES. 



The less ambitious a man is, the more likely is a hireling 

 to suit him. 



In purchasing, the personal equation has to be studied. Some 

 folk, myself among the number, like to buy a horse when he 

 is young and unspoiled, and teach him what is good for him ; 

 but in such a case we should, previous to bringing him into 

 the hunting field, make him obedient to hand and leg, intel- 

 ligent when opening gates, and clever over fences ; for manners 

 and ability to jump are the first essentials in a hunter. Even 

 then, he will need at least a complete season for acquiring 

 experience, without which no horse can be a safe conveyance 

 across a country. A man who would knowingly take a 

 kicker, with or without a red bow on his tail, among other 

 horses, could not be a gentleman ; for he would be devoid of 

 consideration for others. The sin, which unfortunately is not 

 an indictable crime, of riding kickers, is the cause, during 

 every season, of serious accidents to riders, horses and hounds. 

 Putting a danger signal on the animal's tail is no palliation 

 of the offence ; because it is often impossible to get out of the 

 way of such a labelled beast in a crowd at the covert side, 

 or when going through a narrow passage, for instance. It is 

 infinitely better to stop at home than to hunt at the risk of 

 others. If a man rides a kicker, the least he can do is to keep 

 as far away from other people as he can. Some, luckily not 

 many, selfish creatures put a red bow on their horse's tail or 

 place the flat of their hand, with the palm to the rear, behind 

 their back in a crowd, in order to get more room than is their 

 due, even when they are riding a perfectly quiet animal ! 



My experience leads me to think that in the large majority 

 of cases, when a horse kicks at hounds, he does so because he 

 is unused to them, and is consequently afraid of them ; and 

 when a horse kicks at another horse, he does so out of revenge 

 for having been kicked himself on a previous occasion. In the 

 former case, the kick is an effort to remove an obnoxious 



