224 STAGHUNTING WITH THE 



galloping over. Comparisons are often made 

 between the amount of work a horse can do 

 if he spends his life amongst the hills and 

 combes of Exmoor, or if he has to carry his 

 master to foxhounds in the Shires. In a flying 

 country, or more certainly still in a big banking 

 country, the perpetual landing is far more trying 

 to forelegs and tendons than the galloping chases 

 of Exmoor, and the constant -effort of heaving 

 himself and his rider into the air takes far more 

 out of a willing hunter than the struggle up the 

 narrow hillside paths and through the mire and 

 swamps of the western wildnerness. Though the 

 hours 'are far longer and the distances galloped 

 over much greater, horses certainly last longer, 

 if only they receive fair treatment, than they 

 do when ridden equally hard over a flatter 

 country with the usual obstacles. For the hotter 

 and more especially trying days of August old 

 horses are far better mounts than young ones, 

 and will take their turn with more certainty, 

 while bringing their rider home with less weary 

 footsteps than the five or six-year-old mounts, 

 that in hind hunting will prove the better horses ; 

 for it takes a fleeter and a fresher horse to 

 catch a long necked hind than it does to follow 

 the straight running line of a monarch of the 

 moor. 



When a stag has a point to make he will 

 make it without fail, although he may be turned 



