IRISH HUNTERS 



may or may not be demanded. Neither man 

 nor beast can foresee what is prepared for them 

 on the landing side, and a clever Irish hunter 

 brings itself up short in an instant, should the 

 gulf be too formidable for its powers, balancing 

 on the brink, to look for a better spot, or even 

 leaping back again into the field from which it 

 came. 



That the Irishman rides with a light bridle and 

 lets it very much alone is the necessary result. 

 His pace at the fences must be slow, because it 

 is not a horse's nature, however rash, to rush at 

 a place like the side of a house ; and instinct 

 prompts the animal to collect itself without 

 restraint from a rider's hand, while any inter- 

 ference during the second and downward spring 

 would only tend to pull it back into the chasm 

 it is doing its best to clear. 



The efforts by which an Irish hunter surmounts 

 these national impediments is like that of a hound 

 jumping a wall. The horse leaps to the top with 

 fore and hind feet together, where it dwells, almost 

 imperceptibly, while shifting the purchase, or 

 "changing," as the natives call it, in the shortest 

 possible stride, of a few inches at most, to make 

 the second spring. Every good English hunter 

 will strike back with his hind legs when surprised 

 into sudden exertion, but only a proficient bred, 

 or at least taught, in the sister island, can master 



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