HORSE FOR GRASS COUNTRIES 251 



asked which point of a horse I consider indispensable 

 to a Leicestershire hunter, I should answer the way 

 the head and neck are put on to the shoulders. I 

 have seldom known a first-rate horse without the 

 long neck well set on, springing elegantly (there is no 

 better word) from the shoulders and joining grace- 

 fully to the throat ; and if to this a long, lean, sensible 

 head is attached, the chances are you have a good 

 horse. As to shoulders, the only safe thing to say is 

 that you can know nothing about them till you sit 

 behind them and know whether the horse can use 

 them or not. Indeed, with the exception of the neck 

 and head, we have only to think of other points, and a 

 cloud of exceptions will rise up before the mind of 

 horses apparently defective yet really excellent. 



There are, in fact, many things, to which we should 

 object in the show ring, which are ensured by and 

 compensated for by other excellences. For example, 

 there is the old question of large or small feet, yet one 

 of the best mares that I ever rode had notably small 

 feet. In regard to this point, it may be said that in 

 Leicestershire, and especially High Leicestershire, in 

 most years we are going on the top of the ground. 

 Then I like mares, and, though some people have a 

 prejudice against them, I think they are mistaken 

 unless they themselves or their grooms have a pain 

 in their tempers. Mares will not stand knocking about, 

 either in or out of the stable ; but gentle, kindly 

 usage is absolutely necessary in their case as it is, 

 of course, advisable with all horses. But, as I look 

 back over the past and the memory pictures of the 

 favourites of those times stand out, the majority of 

 them are mares. There was the chestnut mare, never 

 sick or sorrow, that carried an undergraduate with the 

 Bicester and the Heythrop, never turned her honest 



