DRESS AND EQUIPMENT 289 



This kind of strain will be rather painful in the evening 

 of the day in which we suffered it, but it will be agony- 

 next day. I remember hunting after a bad strain 

 and being just on the point of going home. " Where 

 are you off to ? " said a friend. " Oh, I've strained 

 the rider's muscle and I can't ride, so I'm off." " But 

 you'll never come right if you lie up. The right 

 thing to do is to ride and jump ; and the more it 

 hurts, the better." And so it proved. If pain was 

 a sign of the cure working, there was no doubt about 

 the efficacy of the prescription, but the strain got well 

 in due time and I lost no hunting. 



It is astonishing how common this strain of the 

 rider's muscle is. A great many people suffer from 

 it. The causes are, I imagine, first and foremost, 

 want of condition. When I lived on the northern 

 frontier of India, where everybody rode and played 

 polo or racquets in the cold weather, and in the summer 

 all who could get leave went to Kashmir for shooting, 

 I never heard of such a thing as rider's strain, nor 

 in many years in the saddle on horses of all sorts and 

 shapes have I ever suffered from it before. But I 

 am sure that my friend was in the right. The only 

 thing to do is to go on riding as best one can till the 

 muscles regain their tone. Nevertheless it is a most 

 unpleasant experience, and the strain can be pre- 

 vented, I am sure, to some extent by care in the 

 matter of saddles and by " setting more at liberty " 

 on a big jumping horse. 



There is another article of our equipment for the 

 hunting field, the value of which is much discussed 

 nowadays. I refer to the spur. So far as I know, 

 until comparatively recently, the spur was regarded 

 as a necessary part of the horseman's outfit. But 

 there have been a good many writers who have 



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