liejjort on the Horses Exhibited at Windsor. 555 
Further innovations were in store. In 1864 — on the same 
day on which the hunters belonging to the late Lord Henry 
Bentinck, who had been Master of the Burton Hunt, were sold — 
the late Mr. Samuel Sidney managed the first horse show ever 
held at the Agi'icultural Hall, Islington, when for the first time 
horses were ridden and driven in the ring, and leaping competi- 
tions formed part of the programme. The Royal Agricultural 
Society so far followed the example set them that when they held 
their Show at Newcastle, a few weeks after the Islington fixture, 
the hunters and hacks were ridden instead of being shown in 
hand, as on previous occasions; while at Bury, in 18G7 (there 
was no Show in 1866, in consequence of the raging of the 
cattle plague), the Society made a further concession to the 
popular taste by having a leaping bar put up in the ring 
in which the hunters were judged, over which all hunters 
above the age of three years might, if their riders chose, exhibit 
their prowess ; though, at the same time, the decisions of the 
Judges were to be in no way influenced by the "timber- 
topping." On this occasion seventeen weight-carrying hunters 
and fifteeen four-year-olds were exhibited, and a good many of 
the riders indulged in " larking" over the bar, to the unspeak- 
able delight of the onlookers. Those responsible for the report 
of that year were inclined to be in favour of the introduction of 
jumping, believing that it would be "of great service finan- 
cially" to the Society. At Leicester, however, in 1868 (where 
the show of light horses was very poor for the headquarters of 
fox-hunting), the ground was so hard and slippery that jumping 
was out of the question ; and in 1869, at Manchester, gorsed 
hurdles were substituted for the bar. The compilers of the report 
now differed from the opinion of those who had spoken two years 
before, and recommended that the jumping should be discon- 
tinued, lest the Royal Agricultural Society should incur the re- 
proach of making their show, so far as the horses were concerned, 
merely a medium of collecting money. This view has prevailed, 
for, as every one knows, neither leaping bars nor gorsed hurdles 
are now seen in a Royal Show ring. 
To revert to the year 1861, the idea of the Islington 
directors of making a horse show a popular affair was a novel 
one ; and no one, at that time, regarded the exhibition of 
their horses as anything more than an amusement. The 
'• pi'ofessional exhibitor," as he is called, had not then been 
invented ; there was no Shire Horse Society ; a Hackney Stud- 
book was not even dreamed about ; nor were Cleveland bays, 
Yorkshire coach horses, Clydesdales, SufFolks, or Hunters objects 
of solicitude to specialist societies. Horse shows, however. 
