CHAPTER LVI 



HUNTER BREEDING 



There can be no doubt that the future of fox- 

 hunting does depend in a certain measure upon the 

 class of horses that are to be bred in the future, 

 for it is perfectly obvious that if we have not 

 horses which can live with hounds over a country, 

 hunting would lose its charm at once. There are 

 to be found in every country, and their numbers 

 are on the increase every day, men who " ride 

 twenty miles, head the fox, and go home," but 

 though these men swell the field, and though some 

 of them are excellent sportsmen, it can scarcely be 

 expected that they would keep the sport going 

 themselves. 



But even if the proposition with which I com- 

 menced this article goes a little too far, the breed- 

 ing of hunters is a subject which must be of 

 paramount importance to every hunting man, and 

 just now there is a good deal of theorising on the 

 subject, and if some of the theories are adopted harm 

 will result and good hunters become even scarcer 

 than they are at present. And as regards the 

 scarcity of hunters, I am inclined to disagree with 

 the pessimists. There is not the slightest doubt 

 that we are better judges of a horse, taken on the 

 average, than were our predecessors. What satis- 



