Tihe Poor Man s Hunter 



because you keep another horse or add a second 

 man to your stable staff is inexplicable, but it does 

 most undoubtedly do so, and all housekeepers 

 where there is a stable will bear me out in this. 

 In the same way when you separate the functions 

 of your horses and keep one as a hunter you have 

 made a step up in the scale of your expenditure. 

 Curiously enough, books on hunting or stable 

 management scarcely ever seem to contemplate 

 one hunter, yet the man with one horse is in 

 reality a familiar figure in most hunts. The 

 stamp of horse needed for a one-horse man in the 

 provinces is, as I have said before, to be found on 

 the borders of Wales, of Exmoor or Dartmoor, in 

 the New Forest, and in Ireland. In fact, wherever 

 farmers use an active, short-legged cart horse, and 

 you know that there is a good thoroughbred In 

 the district. I should try Radnorshire or West 

 Somerset nowadays, and should not expect to fail. 

 The Irish horse is no doubt the best, but to get 

 him at all you want to buy him young, and to ride 

 him very carefully till he is seasoned. The Irish 

 horses I have imported seem never to have had 

 any hard food. 



But supposing that you have bought a stout, 

 useful, well-bred horse for a hunter, how much 

 work will he do ? Everyone will tell you, three 

 days a fortnight ; but many horses can do two a 

 week, though few people will acknowledge to 

 more than the traditional three days a fortnight. 



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