CHAPTER VI 



RIDING OVER THE SHIRES 



Ways of Riding to Hounds — Value of Experience and Practice — 

 Motives for Hard Riding — Strange Horses and Fine Horse- 

 manship — School Riding — Polo as a School of Horsemanship 

 — Scent in a Grass Country — Effect of Large Grass Fields — 

 Great Run by the Cottesmore — Another by Mr. Fernie's 

 Hounds — Opinions of Charles Isaacs — Hounds Changing 

 their Fox — A First Experience in Leicestershire — Quickness 

 in Starting — Advantage of knowing what Hounds are doing 

 — Two Classes of Hunting Men — Ability to Gallop. 



I. Precept 



There are as many ways of riding to hounds in 

 Leicestershire as there are different sorts of men and 

 horses. It may indeed be possible to lay down rules 

 and construct precepts for the benefit of the be- 

 ginner, but it must ever be borne in mind that riding to 

 hounds is not an art that can be learned from books. 



A man might read all that has been written on 

 the subject, from Nimrod to Whyte-Melville and the 

 Badminton Library ; he might conscientiously put 

 in practice all the advice to be found in the pages of 

 these writers ; and yet would not improbably find 

 that he seldom saw a run to his own satisfaction. 

 Not that such study would be thrown away ; still 

 less would time be wasted in watching those who go 

 well ; for in this, as in so many things, example is 



better than precept. 



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