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Munster, Leiiister, and Connaught we should find hundreds of sports- 

 men only too anxious, after their hunting season has ended, to make 

 their dehut between the flags or from point-to-point. But, let me ask, 

 what Hunt is there south of the Boyne— ay, or any two of them — 

 which will send forty horses on the same day to compete in a scurry 

 for two cups '? Yet, as I have said, the co. Down sportsmen did so. 



With very few packs of hounds in the North, or other induce- 

 ments for sport, I met many a sportsman there, and found them even 

 keener than the Southerner. Lots of good fellows from the Bann 

 Water and other places emigrate southwards in the winter, like the 

 swallows, and skim over the broad plains of Meath and Kildare at the 

 tail of the hounds, with very few (and at times no one) before them. 



The Ward Hunt, however, can beat all creation in producing 

 sporting lawyers. While in most countries the limbs of the law are 

 generally innocent of sporting proclivities, our Dublin barristers and 

 attorneys come in force to swell the meets of the Ward when within 

 twenty miles of the metropolis, and nearly always when an unusually 

 fine run is being had over the broad acres of that terribly stiif 

 country, the leading men are members of the bar or solicitors. As a 

 wind up of the season it is quite usual to have a point-to-point race 

 between the two representatives of litigation, where wig-and-gown, 

 and " all that and those " ride hard at each other. God preserve me 

 from law, but if I had to engage in it, give me sporting advocates such 

 as the Dublin lawyers. 



At Ballymena, Mr. Nathaniel Morton has a stud of hunters which, 

 for quality, action, manners, and breeding, I seldom see excelled. 

 He is a gentleman horsedealer, in addition to being an eminent mer- 

 chant in Antrim, and a sportsman besides. He shows his horses 

 loose, either in a large yard or under a long covered ride, well tanned, 

 and where they are put, or rather put themselves, for they are not 

 ridden, over a gorse hurdle, which is raised over five feet for some, 

 and which they clear with a good six inches to spare. I was 

 greatly interested in this performance, and feel convinced that the 

 way to see a horse use himself to perfection is to let him do so with- 

 out a rider, whether it be in any of his paces or over fences. Mr. 

 Morton, however, gives every trial of his horses, and an intending 

 buyer can see them ridden by a groom, or he can ride them himself. 



Mr. William Hanway, a large farmer in the county Kildare, trains 

 his racehorses by letting them loose in a big field, and setting collie 

 dogs after them to make them gallop, a performance both horses and 

 dogs enjoy so much that they get plenty of it. By this means he 

 does away with the strain on their legs consequent upon carrying a 

 rider, and has them so fit that for years they have either won or got 

 placed in the Farmers' Race at Punchestown, and with his horse John 

 Kane similarly trained, he won the Conyngham Cup in 1885. 



Writing about horses being let loose and to themselves reminds 

 me of what I consider a very dangerous fashion which has crept into 



