HORSE FOR GRASS COUNTRIES 233 



traordinary excellence were all animals of consider- 

 able intelligence within the limits of a horse's mind. 

 And here I have a suggestion to offer to horse owners, 

 and particularly to those who have large studs of 

 hunters. I think it must have occurred to many 

 men that young horses are more intelligent than 

 older ones. Dick Christian has noted it in his own 

 quaint and forcible style : " If they " (the old horses) 

 " get into difficulties, blame me, they won't try to 

 get out. They haven't the animation of a young 

 horse. Those young 'uns will still try to struggle 

 themselves right." But it certainly ought to be the 

 other way, and indeed, with horses properly treated, 

 it is so. 



Our treatment of horses is not such as is likely 

 either to develop their minds or to make the best 

 of such intelligence as they have by nature. In a 

 large stud a horse spends a very small portion of 

 his time in the hunting field and the rest in his loose- 

 box or at exercise. He seldom sees or hears any- 

 thing, and his life is monotonous in the extreme. If 

 you ride about the roads round Market Harborough 

 or Melton you will admire the magnificent grass 

 sidings on either side of the well-kept roads. If 

 you look more closely at these you will see that they 

 are, by the beginning of the hunting season, scored 

 by a number of narrow footpaths running in parallel 

 lines. These are trodden out by the hunters at 

 their daily exercise. Day after day the same weary 

 round is followed by the strings of horses, generally 

 at an early hour when they are unlikely to meet 

 much on the road. Their lives are thus dull and 

 monotonous to a degree, and it is small wonder if, 

 like a man suddenly plunged from solitude into 

 society, they do fooHsh things when they find them- 



