RIDING OVER THE SHIRES 211 



ship of the Quorn. Lord Sefton was a heavy-weight, 

 but nevertheless a very quick man to hounds. 

 Though seldom left behind at the start, no one could 

 make up lost ground quicker than he. Timber he 

 disliked and always preferred boring through the 

 thick blackthorn hedges. This his weight enabled 

 him to do, and probably nearly all heavy-weights 

 would do the same, though many light and medium- 

 weights, and perhaps most ladies, would prefer a 

 post and rails to a hedge. So many fences in the 

 Shires are mended with rails that you can almost 

 always find timber to jump if your tastes lie that way. 

 Lord Sefton loved pace, and it was the difficulty of 

 finding horses to gallop under his weight which at 

 last caused him to give up hunting for the raising of 

 fat bullocks. In a poem quoted by Nimrod he is 

 touched off in four lines : 



" Earl Sefton came next, and, for beef on the rib, 

 No Leicestershire bullock was rounder ; 

 A wonderful weight at a wonderful rate, 

 He flew like a twenty-four pounder." 



Lord Sefton was the introducer of second horses. 

 His second horse was, however, not ridden to points 

 as our custom is to-day, but close behind him, so that 

 he could change whenever it seemed desirable. 



It appears to me, as I study the records of the 

 past, that most of the hard riders in those days were 

 heavy-weights, but that may well be because their 

 feats were more wonderful and their deeds conse- 

 quently more fully recorded. Certain points all 

 those famous men had in common. All rode the 

 best horses they could find, and hunters seem to 

 have brought larger prices than they do to-day. 

 There are instances of as much as 1000 guineas having 



