122 GOING AT FENCES. 



horse as to cause inattention to their movements. 

 The art of riding to hounds is easily learnt by a 

 man of good nerve, quick eye, and common ob- 

 servation; but the fact is that ninety men out 

 of a hundred talk and think of everything else 

 save the business in hand, their attention being 

 too much engrossed with their horses and friends 

 to watch the proceedings of the pack. Out of a 

 field of three hundred horsemen who go away with 

 the hounds before them, at the end of fifty minutes 

 fifty men are scarcely placed. But what becomes 

 of the other two hundred and fifty ? Half of them 

 have not the head, and the other half have not 

 the heart, to ride to hounds. There is also great 

 tact in going properly at fences, in which so 

 many are deficient, and for the want of which 

 such multifarious difficulties and drawbacks 

 occur in a sharp run of forty or forty -five 

 minutes. Many men ride at every obstacle in 

 the same manner, thereby acquiring many tumbles ; 

 but the safest rule is to put your horse slowly 

 (pulling him into a trot before taking off") at high 

 fences, such as gates, walls, wattles, or rails, where 

 height is to be surmounted ; and briskly at brooks 

 and other wide leaps where breadth only is to 

 be covered. A wide bank, with double ditches, 

 should be approached cautiously, and done by 



