WEEK AT MARKET HARBOROUGH 85 



The Glooston Wood side of the country, which is 

 also that nearest Market Harborough, is not so popular 

 with the hard riders as the Leicester portion, though 

 I think on the whole figures would show that most 

 of the best sport is found on the Keythorpe side of 

 the country. Yet there can be no doubt that for 

 short and brilliant bursts such coverts as Glen Gorse, 

 Norton Gorse, Thumby and Sheepthorns, not to 

 mention Stoughton New Covert, which ought in pro- 

 cess of time to open a way into some of the best of 

 the Quorn Friday country, are excellent. But during 

 many weeks of the season both sides of this country 

 are hunted in the same week, on Thursday and Friday, 

 the hunt card I have before me announcing Burton 

 Overy and Keythorpe on these days for the second 

 week in March. 



But let us begin with some of the coverts farthest 

 from Market Harborough, though our hardier fore- 

 fathers would have regarded the distance to, say, 

 Oadby Tollbar, as nothing. " I should hope no fox- 

 hunter would think twenty miles too far to ride to 

 covert," writes one of them. Well, I suppose Oadby 

 is twelve miles from Harborough, and we now think 

 it quite far enough. We may begin the day with 

 Knighton Spinneys or some of those coverts which 

 always hold foxes and show that the good town of 

 Leicester has not forgotten the days when it was a 

 fashionable hunting centre, and when Lord Gardner 

 and others made the " Bell " at Leicester almost as 

 well known as a hunting inn as the " George " or 

 the " Harborough Arms " at Melton. There are foxes 

 in this part, though not much room to hunt them in. 

 I have, indeed, seen hounds work out a line over the 

 golf links, or run a fox to earth under the grand stand 

 of the racecourse. This part of the day we accept 



