28 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



encountered. It is sufficient to know that hunting men must 

 provide for themselves independent of the turf. Place good 

 sires within the reach of tenant farmers, and they will use them ; 

 for although of late years, from the high price of meat, liorse- 

 hreeding has been much given up, when a farmer does breed, 

 nine times out of ten he means a hunter. Whether he takes 

 the most likely means to get it is another matter. 



As is racing in the case, so are shows, perhaps, with the 

 exception of the prizes awarded to sires, and these are too 

 often swept away all over the country by one horse, or else 

 awarded to an animal whose high fee places him quite out of 

 the reach of half-bred mares. With regard to the horses 

 shown as hunters, I have seen a good many, having attended 

 most of the leading shows for a number of years, but amongst 

 them very few on which I should care to risk my neck 

 over a country. They are, no doubt, very grand horses to look 

 at ; but unless they can be sold to grace the stables of some 

 foreign prince, I fear their utility, for the most part, ends. 

 Of course there are exceptions, and a few of them have, I know, 

 done good work with hounds ; but others, even from the stables of 

 well-known hardmen, have come out occasionally to jump a few 

 big fences and go home again ; while other cracks that I have seen 

 in the field were very considerately and safely taken round by 

 the gates, and never asked to jump at all. A few years ago, 

 wishing to know the character of a horse which had taken first 

 prize as a heavy-weight hunter, I wrote to a man who had 

 every opportunity of knowing all about him. His answer was, 



" is a very wooden brute as a hunter, but good enough 



to stand still and look at. gave nearly for him 



(mentioning a very long figure) ; but though he had him for 

 three years, I never saw him what I call ride him." So much 

 for the show-yard and show-yard horses. 



I cannot better close this chapter than by quoting a letter 

 written during the last century by a nobleman to his agent in 

 Leicestershire : — 



