IRISH HUNTERS 



minutes' repose for breathing or conversation. 

 " It's an intrickate country," observes some 

 brother-sportsman with just such another mount 

 to the veteran I have endeavoured to describe ; 

 "and will that be the colt by Chitchat out of 

 Donovan's mare? Does he * lep ' well now?" 

 he adds, with much interest. "The beautifullest 

 ever ye see ! " answers his friend, and nobody 

 who has witnessed the young horse's performances 

 can dispute the justice of such a reply. It is not 

 difficult to understand that hunters so educated 

 and so ridden in a country where every leap 

 requires power, courage, and the exercise of much 

 sagacity, should find little difficulty in surmount- 

 ing such obstacles as confront them on this side 

 of the Channel. It is child's play to fly a 

 Leicestershire fence, even with an additional rail, 

 for a horse that has been taught his business 

 amongst the precipitous banks and fathomless 

 ditches of Meath or Kildare. If the ground were 

 always sound and the hills somewhat levelled, 

 these Irish hunters would find little to stop them 

 in Leicestershire from going as straight as their 

 owners dared ride. Practice at walls renders 

 them clever timber-jumpers, they have usually 

 the spring and confidence that make nothing of a 

 brook, and their careful habit of preparing for 

 something treacherous on the landing side of 

 every leap prevents their being taken unawares 



147 



