CHAPTER IX 



THE HORSE FOR THE GRASS COUNTRIES 



Intelligence of the Horse — Extreme Views — Breeding Hunters — 

 Young Horses versus Old — The Day's Routine — Irish and 

 Arab — The Right Horse for Leicestershire — Care of the 

 Horse — Osbaldeston's " Cannon Ball " — A Description by 

 Nimrod — Beauty and Strength — Big Horses the Best — Buy- 

 ing and Selling — Educating. 



The objects of this chapter are sternly practical. 

 In it we shall occupy ourselves only with the subject 

 of horses to ride over the Midlands. I shall make no 

 attempt to describe an ideal Leicestershire horse. 

 There is, indeed, no one type of horse which is suit- 

 able for every one, though there are of course certain 

 points and qualities which we cannot do without. 

 It is my object to find out what these are, and to 

 this end I have gathered a number of particular 

 instances, from which we shall find that, important 

 as physical qualities are to a hunter, these are useless 

 without those which we cannot call by any other 

 name than mental gifts. 



It used to be the fashion with writers to eulogise 

 the intelligence of the horse and possibly to exaggerate 

 it. Nowadays it is rather the custom to depreciate 

 the mental powers of the horse, to call him stupid 

 and even senseless ; and the drivers of motor-cars 

 desire to make out that he is a kind of machine, of 

 which the boilers are always out of order and on 



