HUNTING ACCIDENTS 151 



And the sum of their offence is that in the 

 great majority of cases their horses are nearly, 

 if not quite, out of control as long as a 

 gallop is left in them. They see the first-flight 

 men gallop faster than they are doing, and con- 

 sequently they flatter themselves that they are 

 riding at a safe pace. What they do not see is 

 that the first-flight men can stop their horses at 

 any moment. And to this absence of control over 

 their horses many of the misadventures caused by 

 crossing at fences is due. 



I should be inclined to express the opinion that 

 there are fewer fatal and dangerous accidents in 

 proportion in steeplechasing than there are in 

 hunting, and the reasons for this, I take it, are 

 that no man gets up to ride a steeplechase without 

 having some pretensions to horsemanship ; that in 

 a steeplechase each man takes his own line, and it 

 is only in the case of a horse swerving that any 

 " crossing " takes place ; and that the fences all 

 have to be jumped. It is a frequent matter of 

 comment that there are more nasty falls in an easy 

 country than in a stiff one, and the reason probably 

 is that no man attempts to ride over a stiff country 

 unless he is mounted on a horse that has some 

 pretensions to being a hunter. 



" It sometimes happens that when a horse has 

 been doing stiff fences he fails altogether over a 

 much easier country." So says Sir Claude de 

 Crespigny, and than him no one has a better 

 right to give an opinion. Similarly many a clever 

 hunter, who can and does clear high timber, thick 

 bullfinch, or wide drain without a mistake comes 

 down at a little place which a boy could jump on a 

 pony. The horse is careless, the man equally so, 



