254 FOX-HUNTING IN THE SHIRES 



shire after an absence of many years. The horses 

 were hunters and the fences they could manage, but 

 it was the pace that beat them. They fell not because 

 the fences were too big, but because the pace was too 

 fast for them. 



A horse, then, must be able to stay, and to do this 

 he must have condition. It is, however, a mistake to 

 condemn a new purchase too hastily because he stops 

 in a hard and fast run. I have heard or read some- 

 where of a purchaser giving ;^20 to a dealer to take 

 back a horse that had stopped under him, when in 

 fact the horse was only short of condition. We have 

 in very many cases to make our horses fit after we 

 buy them. Irish horses are seldom fit to go over 

 Leicestershire when they first come over the Channel, 

 and the same is true of horses bought in the provinces 

 and from dealers. In buying horses, we want to look 

 ahead and to remember that a horse takes time to be 

 equal to the strain of a fast gallop over the ridge and 

 furrow and undulating lands of the Shires. 



Then a horse should be temperate and go up to his 

 fences collectedly not only because one that rushes 

 is dangerous, but also because he is sure to beat him- 

 self. In the crowds that cannot be avoided in Leicester- 

 shire a violent horse is dangerous, but here again it is 

 wise not to condemn a new horse too hastily. I have 

 known horses, which had been perfectly temperate 

 and easy to ride in their own country, become so 

 excited in a crowded field as to be almost useless. 

 But if this is merely the nervousness of a high-strung 

 horse in unfamiliar conditions, then patience and 

 perseverance will usually work a cure. We all re- 

 member how Mr. Assheton Smith sent one horse home 

 for this fault several times. Some horses are very 

 violent unless they can see hounds, but once indulge 



