HORSE FOR GRASS COUNTRIES 245 



to economise his strength, and to ensure his safety. 

 Compare the way the good, but inexperienced, horse 

 bounds over a two-foot drain with the almost imper- 

 ceptible way in which a trained hunter will glide over 

 a fence, measuring the effort to a hair's breadth. Rut 

 no horse that has spent his life cantering round the 

 show ring can have the experience necessary to do 

 this any more than a man could all at once take a line 

 over Leicestershire who had, with whatever grace of 

 seat or delicacy of hand, never ridden anywhere save 

 in Hyde Park. We shall therefore, in looking for 

 horses, look beyond mere beauty and avoid flat 

 catchers if possible. 



I have said, and I believe with truth, that for a man 

 who wishes to cross Leicestershire in the front rank, 

 a big horse is better than a little one. But if you 

 cannot find, as you very likely will not, a good big 

 horse, why then a good little one is not to be despised. 

 Naturally, little horses of excellence are commoner than 

 big ones, and though I think on the whole that the 

 majority of men who ride would agree with what is 

 said above, yet I know that there are some people 

 who prefer smaller horses. Nor in looking over a 

 horse must we be guided by the eye alone, for a very 

 true shaped horse often looks much smaller than he 

 really is. There have been some very famous little 

 horses too, such as Lord Howth's, The Slug, which was 

 barely fifteen hands. He won many chases in Ireland, 

 carried Lord Howth over the Belvoir country, was 

 the only horse to jump the Smite at the end of a long 

 day, and was for some time alone with hounds at the 

 close of a hard run. Though he was so small, he 

 stood over a great deal of ground. That is to say, 

 he was a big horse on short legs, not at all a bad com- 

 bination for a hunter. 



