O ■'» 



64 " WHEN AT ROME, ETC. ETC. 



race-horse in condition, it is only because since I 

 first hunted hounds have always gone the pace 

 they now go, or very nearly so, that I hold such 

 condition necessary. 



If a man was obliged to confine himself to hunt 

 with harriers in a cold bleak country, I should 

 tremble for his horse if he was in tip-top Leicester- 

 shire condition : not from thinking a horse in such 

 condition more likely to contract a cold than any 

 other if properly used, (that is,) used for such purposes 

 as require such condition ; nor is a short coat that 

 dries quickly so likely to produce such a calamity 

 as a long one that is tantamount to a wet blanket 

 on a horse : but that the general atmosphere in 

 which such a horse must be continually kept renders 

 him unfit to withstand the cold, slow work, and, 

 what is worse, the alternate heats and chills to which 

 the hunter mth harriers is subjected. A clipped 

 horse thus exposed would be as much to be pitied as a 

 lady in a ball dress joining the throng witnessing 

 the skaters in Hyde Park. Condition, so far as high 

 feeding, and consequent high health, goes, is a pre- 

 ventive of colds, and in no place are colds less 

 frequent than in a Melton stable. So as Ave say of 

 Rome, when we are at Melton, we must do as they 

 do at Melton, at least with Melton horses. 



Hunters formerly never galloped between the days 

 of hunting, nor was it then necessary ; they were then 

 able to come so often that any thing like a sweat 

 between the days was not wanted. Two horses 

 then would enable a man (barring accidents) to hunt 

 three days a-week with fox-hounds, and get also a 

 day with harriers with that horse whose turn it was 

 to get but one day in that week with fox-hounds. 



