26 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



more and more for a ' turn of speed/ utterly regardless of 

 endurance, till our famous English race-horses have degenerated 

 into such galloping ' weeds ' that I myself heard an excellent 

 sportsman and high authority on such matters affirm, in dis- 

 cussing the horse-and-hounds match which was to have come off 

 last October, that ' he did not believe there was a horse at 

 ]S"ewmarket that could go four miles at all — no, not if you 

 trotted him every yard of the way ! ' This, of course, was a 

 jest; but, like many a random shaft, 'pointed with sarcasm and 

 winged with a laugh,' it struck not very far off the centre of the 

 target. Even our hunters too (and surely if you want endur- 

 ance in any animal alive it is in a hunter !) we are improving 

 year by year into a sort of jumping camelopard. Where are 

 the strong, deep-girthed horses on short legs of thirty years ago ? 

 — horses that stood just under sixteen hands, and could carry 

 sixteen stone. Look at what people call a first-class hunter 

 now (and it must be admitted that, for the high price he com- 

 mands in the market, he ought to be as near perfection as 

 possible) — look at him as you may, see him in fifty different 

 specimens, with the Pytchley or Quorn hounds, any hunting 

 day throughout the winter. He is a bay or brown — if the 

 latter, more of a chocolate than a mottled, with white about his 

 legs and nose. He stands sixteen two at least, with much day- 

 light underneath him. He has either a very long, weak neck, 

 with a neat head, or more often a good deal of front and throat, 

 with a general bull-headed appearance that conveys the idea of 

 what sailors term * by the bows,' and argues a tendency to hard 

 pulling, which, to do him justice, he generally possesses. He 

 has fine sloping shoulders, and can stride away in excellent form 

 over a grass-field, reaching out famously with his fore-legs, 

 which, though long, are flat, clean, and good. Somehow, you 

 are rather disappointed when you get on his back. With no 

 positive fault to find, you have yet an uncomfortable conviction 

 that he does not feel like it, and, for all his commanding height, 

 you are subjected to no irresistible temptation to lark him. 



