144 THE SPORT OF KINGS 



Most of the great runs I have seen — and I have 

 seen about eight or ten in my time — have lasted 

 more than an hour ; some have lasted for two, and 

 one run, or rather succession of runs, was timed at 

 three hours and a quarter. The latter had not a 

 big point — as a matter of fact, hounds ran the 

 same ring twice, but it was a very wide ring, a lot 

 of country was crossed, and only eight of us saw 

 the finish, and of the eight horses up at the finish 

 one died from the results of the run, whilst another 

 horse or two were killed in the field. Then there 

 is the question of pace. For a run to be entitled 

 to be called a great one, or even a good one, there 

 must be a good pace most of the way. Hounds 

 must drive and not hunt, though a few minutes' 

 slower hunting should not necessarily relegate a run 

 to the ranks of the moderate. It is strange, nay, 

 'tis passing strange, 'tis wonderful, what very 

 elastic ideas some men have respecting pace. I 

 was once out in a good country, hounds ran an 

 eight-mile point in an hour, rising some 800 feet 

 in the time, and on talking the run over with a man, 

 he remarked that it was a pretty gallop, but slow. 

 As for a considerable distance the leading horsemen 

 were never in the same field with hounds, and as 

 my critical friend was generally a field behind the 

 leading horseman, I pointed out to him that there 

 had been an opportunity to distinguish himself of 

 which he had not taken advantage, and I asked 

 him why he had not ridden on. 



A run somehow or other gets coloured by the 

 place from which a man has seen it. If he has got 

 thrown out, or has missed it by some mischance, 

 he is apt to look at it with prejudiced eyes, and to 

 say that " it was not such a very good run after 



