300 The Post and the Paddock. 



parallel to that of poor Gameboy and the scythe, or 

 the horse of an unhappy clerical friend of ours, which 

 nerved itself as effectually as a V.C. lancet could have 

 done it, by treading on the handle of an axe, that lay 

 across its path in an inn archway. 



Hampshire is not a great hunter-breeding country, 

 and many of its best young horses reach Collins 

 through Mr. Henry Barnes, the dealer, of Andover. 

 Mr. Assheton Smith's stud, of which Apsley (who 

 was bought from Lord Bathurst), Escape, The 

 Sultan, Raglan, &c., are among the best known, used 

 to be purchased principally from Tom Smart of 

 Crickdale ; but since his death, Mr. Smith princi- 

 pally dealt with Mr. Reeves, of Marlborough. The 

 crack home-bred Hampshire horses are decidedly 

 the Safeguards and the Bowstrings. " Etwall's old 

 horse," as he is always called, is quite a county 

 hero, and returned some three or four seasons ago 

 to his Longstock quarters. Hence a second series 

 of big fifteen-three, weight-carrying, dark chestnut 

 hunters, with white blazes and remarkably fine 

 tempers in the field, are coming forward. Safeguard 

 himself is quite blind, but his stock have not that 

 fatal heritage. The Bowstrings are much of the 

 same stamp — dark chestnuts, but more whole-coloured 

 than the Safeguards, — and there are a great number 

 of them in the Stockbridge district. He was sub- 

 sequently sold into Devonshire for 300 guineas. 



It is only lately that the farmers of Suffolk have 

 bred from thorough-bred horses to any extent ; and 

 when the late *' Squire Jenney," as he was always 

 called, brought St. Hubert from Newmarket (where 

 they principally hunt on retired racers), about 1825, 

 they would hardly look at him, much more use 

 him. However, after seeing him hunted some 

 seasons with The Squire's ** merry harriers," they 

 began to think better of him. He was a chestnut 



