THE HISTORY OF THE BELVOIR HUNT 



from politics, though he did not care for the horses his 

 brother, the late Duke, liked best. The latter loved a 

 horse to " catch hold," and delighted in animals which many 

 men would reject as being too determined pullers. The 

 best mounted man of the period was Sir Thomas Which- 

 cote of Aswarby, so often mentioned before, whose big, 

 long-tailed blood horses were kept in such admirable con- 

 dition by Tom Wincup, his stud groom. Then there were 

 Mr. George Drummond and Major Longstaffe, who kept 

 their horses at Grantham. Mr. Drummond would go hard, 

 though he loved shooting too. There is a legend that he once 

 shot a fox by mistake for a hare, and the mistake, real or 

 supposed, was for long a joke at the Castle. Sir F. Grant, 

 at that time President of the Academy, still loved hunting, 

 and having married Miss Norman, a cousin of the Duke's, 

 was a visitor at the Castle. He still rode hard at times among 

 the heavy-weights of the hunt. How much time and how 

 many events had passed since he was the gay young stripling 

 who spent his little patrimony right royally among the Melton 

 bloods of his day ! 



The Prince of Wales always enjoyed his visits to Belvoir, 

 and has probably not forgotten the gallop in which he 

 jumped over a prostrate farmer, nor has the characteristic 

 kindly courtesy with which he pulled up and returned to 

 apologise been forgotten either. This visit of the Prince is 

 remembered too in the Quorn, for he sowed the first seeds 

 of that covert at Baggrave which has done so well for the 

 hunt. 



In 1874 death was busy among the older members of 

 the hunt. Lord George Manners, the Duke's brother, well 

 known on the turf and one of the best dressed men in 

 town and a smart soldier, passed away. He hunted too 

 sometimes, but loved the racecourse better than the hunting 

 field. But from the point of view of this book the death 

 of Lord Forester in that year was the most important event. 

 No one had hunted more or ridden harder. No master did 

 so much for the hounds as he did, for no fault or irregularity 

 was permitted to mar the symmetry of the pack in his time. 



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