THOROUGH-BRED HORSES 



"welter" to name the best horse he ever had, he 

 is sure to answer, "Oh! Httle So-and-so. He 

 wasn't up to my weight, but he carried me better 

 than anything else in the stable ! " Surely no 

 criterion could be more satisfactory than this ! 



It may not be out of place to observe here, as 

 an illustration of the w^ell-known maxim, " Horses 

 can go in all shapes," that of the three heaviest 

 men I can call to mind who rode perfectly straight 

 to hounds, the best hunter owned by each was 

 too long in the back. " Sober Robin," an extra- 

 ordinary animal that could carry Mr. Richard 

 Gurney, riding twenty stone, ahead of all the 

 light-weights, was thus shaped. A famous bay- 

 horse, nearly as good, belonging to the late Mr. 

 Wood of Brixworth Hall, an equally heavy man, 

 who when thus mounted never stopped to open 

 a gate ! had, his owner used to declare, as many 

 vertebrae as a crocodile ; and Colonel Wyndham, 

 whose size and superiority in the saddle I have 

 already mentioned, hesitated a week before he 

 bouo-ht his famous black mare, the most brilliant 

 hunter he ever possessed, because she was at 

 least three inches too long behind the saddle ! 



I remember also seeing the late Lord Mayo 

 ride fairly away from a Pytchley field, no easy 

 task, between Lilbourne and Cold Ashby, on a 

 horse that except for its enormous depth of girth, 

 arguing unfailing wind, seemed to have no good 



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