384 VAULTING. 



stone walls or wide ditches. This is probably the 

 case, but this is not all that makes them what they 

 are : they have a different mode of jumping to the 

 English horse, and this gives them that general fa- 

 cility of leaping high, that our horses certainly do 

 not so universally possess. See a deer jump ; the 

 exertion appears nothing to him. I saw one with 

 the royal hounds take the wall into Cumberland 

 Lodge Garden. It was quite seven feet : he was 

 standing in the shrubbery that surrounds the wall : 

 the hounds ran up to him ; he was not ten feet from 

 the wall ; he looked at it, took a few steps in a walk, 

 and vaulted over, merely displacing a brick or two. 



Now the Irish horse jumps something in the same 

 way. The English horse takes off from his hind 

 legs, and when half over his fence, has himself at 

 nearly full stretch ; he then brings his hind legs under 

 him, and alights on his fore ones ; then bringing in 

 the hinder ones. The Irish horse takes oft' from all 

 fours ; when on the top of his fence, all his legs are 

 tucked under him, and he alights on all four together : 

 this makes him more difficult to sit than ours ; the 

 English horse strides over his leap, the Irish horse 

 vaults over it ; this is peculiarly favourable to high 

 jumping. I do not think the Irish horse can naturally 

 leap wider than ours, but I most certainly think he 

 can higher. 



I am sure that many men in England accustomed 

 to keep horses must have found many that could 

 not or would not leap at all, that have had no idea 

 of the thing, and would allow themselves to be forced 

 into a ditch, or through a fence, without attempting 

 to leap at it : this is never found in the Irish horse ; 

 buy what you will, you are sure of a leaper to a 



