THE ABUSE OF THE SPUR 



of " a hard funker " ; and the term, so happily 

 applied, fully rendered what he meant. Of all 

 riders the hard funker is the most unmerciful to 

 his beast ; at every turn he uses his spurs cruelly, 

 not because he is hard, but because he funks. 

 Let us watch him crossing a country, observing 

 his style as a warning rather than an example. 



Hesitation and hurry are his principal faults, 

 practised, with much impartiality, in alternate 

 extremes. Though half-way across a field, he is 

 still undecided where to get out. This vacillation 

 communicates itself in electric sympathy to his 

 horse, and both go wavering down to their fence, 

 without the slightest idea what they mean to do 

 when they arrive. Some ten strides off the 

 rider makes up his mind, selecting, probably, an 

 extremely awkward place, for no courage is so 

 desperate as that which is founded on fear. 

 Want of determination is now supplemented by 

 excessive haste, and with incessant application of 

 the spurs his poor horse is hurried wildly at the 

 leap. That it gets over without falling, as 

 happens oftener than might be supposed, seems 

 due to activity in the animal rather than sagacity 

 in the rider, and a strong instinct of self-preserva- 

 tion in both ; but such a process, repeated again 

 and again during a gallop, even of twenty 

 minutes, tells fearfully on wind and muscle, nor 

 have many hunters sufficient powers of endurance 



6\ 



