A HUNTING STABLE. fS 



Oaks, the Derby and the St. Leger, being for at this 

 age, and nothing but the Goodwood stakes and a few 

 comparatively unimportant cups being open to all 

 ages, it is not worth the while of any one to keep his 

 horse, however promising, until he shall have attained 

 his fiill powers, when there are no adequate prizes, 

 not even of renown and glory, to compensate him for 

 the time, the risk, and the expenditure of money. 



It is these horses, which, purchased cheap at the 

 spring racing sales, and suffered to run at large until 

 five or six years old, then turn out the prodigies and 

 paragons, which they prove to be across country with 

 enormous weights, from one hundred and sixty-eight 

 pounds to two hundred and upward on their backs ; 

 taking incessant leaps, and running from nine to 

 twelve miles at a stretch across very deep, wet meadow 

 land, at their best pace ; and thereby, as I hold, prov- 

 ing themselves fully competent under a proper system 

 of training and racing to run four mile heats against 

 any class of horses in the universe. 



If, however, this system has proved injurious to the 

 racing stable, as it can undoubtedly be shown that it 

 has done, it has proved in the same degree advanta- 

 geous to the hunting stables throughout the land, 

 and more especially in Leicestershire, Northampton- 

 shii-e, and the midland counties, in which the enclo- 

 sures are so large and the ground in general so gt)od 

 for galloping, that nothing short of thorough breds 

 have any chance of living with fox-hounds, the breed- 

 ing and pace of which has been improved within the 

 last few years, so that hunting now, and hunting in 

 the days when Somervill and Beckford wrote, may be 

 regarded as two different species of sport. 



In accordance with this change the stables of Colo- 

 nel Fairfax had been modeled, and as he was person- 

 ally a capital judge of a horse, and very regardless of 

 expense, he had found little difficulty in filling his 



