With the York Packs 279 



beautiful hands, with an extremely quick eye for a country, 

 and he knew every trick of the game. 



In his quiet way he would often point out to a 

 beginner how a particular fence should be ridden at, and 

 then by way of pointing the moral, give a practical lesson 

 by riding over it himself. A very useful maxim of his 

 was that when the country is very blind, and the ditch 

 is on the taking-off side, the wisest plan is, if possible, to 

 pick a place where the ditch is uncovered, so that the 

 horse can see what he is doing. How many riders do the 

 reverse of this, and by way of calming their own nervous- 

 ness, ride at the most hidden part of the ditch ! Further, 

 he used to say, that if a hidden ditch is suspected, ride at 

 a high part of the fence, and put the pace on. Your 

 horse is then obliged to stand further away when he 

 takes off, and does not gallop into the ditch. But nerves 

 require to be good, to pick out a big place instead of a 

 much smaller one equally available ! He had a most 

 excellent stud of horses that carried him apparently so 

 smoothly, that few suspected what bad-tempered brutes 

 many of them were until they bought them at the 

 executor's sale. They were mostly thoroughbred, many of 

 them being picked up at the Newmarket Sales when three 

 or four years old in the autumn. One of his best, 

 though an extremely bad-tempered horse, was " Brunow," 

 who had been second in the Grand Prix. A rather 

 curious circumstance happened one day with the Bram- 

 ham Moor. There was a wide ditch, generally known 

 as the Marston Drain, which we had to cross when 

 running from Hutton Thorns to Wilstrop, a very favourite 

 line in those days. There was then no hunting bridge 

 over it, and we invariably used to creep halfway down 



