I have heard it affirmed, though I know not on what authority, that if we are to believe the hunting records of the last hundred years, in all runs so severe and protracted as to admit of only one man getting to the finish, this exceptional person was in every instance, riding an old horse, a thorough-bred horse, and a horse under fifteen-two!

Perhaps on consideration, this is a less remarkable statement than it appears. That the survivor was an old horse, means that he had many years of corn and condition to pull him through; that he was a little horse, infers he carried a light weight, but that he was a thorough-bred horse seems to me a reasonable explanation of the whole.

“The thorough-bred ones never stop,” is a common saying among sportsmen, and there are daily instances of some high-born steed who can boast

“His sire from the desert, his dam from the north,”

galloping steadily on, calm and vigorous, when the country behind him is dotted for miles with hunters standing still in every field.

It is obvious that a breed, reared expressly for racing purposes, must be the fastest of its kind. A colt considered good enough to be “put through the mill” on Newmarket Heath, or Middleham Moor, whatever may be his shortcomings in the select company he finds at school, cannot but seem “a flyer,” when in after-life he meets horses, however good, that have neither been bred nor trained for the purpose of galloping a single mile at the rate of an express train. While these are at speed he is only cantering, and we need not therefore be surprised that he can keep cantering on after they are reduced to a walk.

In the hunting-field, “what kills is the pace.” When hounds can make it good enough they kill their fox, when horses cannot it kills them, and for this reason alone, if for no other, I would always prefer that my hunters should be quite thorough-bred.

Though undoubtedly the best, I cannot affirm, however, that they are always the pleasantest mounts; far from it, indeed, just at first, though subsequent superiority makes amends for the little eccentricities of gait and temper peculiar to pupils from the racing-stable in their early youth.

An idle, lurching mover, rather narrow before the saddle, with great power of back and loins, a habit of bearing on its rider’s hand, one side to its mouth, and a loose neck, hardly inspires a careful man with the confidence necessary for enjoyment; coming away from Ranksborough, for instance, down-hill, with the first fence leaning towards him, very little room, his horse too much extended, going on its shoulders, and getting the better of him at every stride!

But this is an extreme case, purposely chosen to illustrate at their worst, the disadvantages of riding a thorough-bred horse.

It is often our own fault, when we buy one of these illustrious cast-offs, that our purchase so disappoints us after we have got it home. Many men believe that to carry them through an exhausting run, such staying powers are required as win under high weights and at long distances on the turf.

Their selection, therefore, from the racing-stable, is some young one of undeniably stout blood, that when “asked the question” for the first time, has been found too slow to put in training. They argue with considerable show of reason, that it will prove quite speedy enough for a hunter, but they forget that though a fast horse is by no means indispensable to the chase, a quick one is most conducive to enjoyment when we are compelled to jump all sorts of fences out of all sorts of ground.

Now a yearling, quick enough on its legs to promise a turn of speed, is pretty sure to be esteemed worth training, nor will it be condemned as useless, till its distance is found to be just short of half-a-mile. In plain English, when it fails under the strain on wind and frame, of galloping at its very best, eight hundred and seventy yards, and “fades to nothing” in the next ten.

Now this collapse is really more a question of speed than stamina. There is a want of reach or leverage somewhere, that makes its rapid action too laborious to be lasting, but there is no reason why the animal that comes short of five furlongs on the trial-ground, should not hold its own in front, for five miles of a steeple-chase, or fifteen of a run with hounds.

These, in fact, are the so-called “weeds” that win our cross-country races, and when we reflect on the pace and distance of the Liverpool, four miles and three-quarters run in something under eleven minutes, at anything but feather-weights, and over all sorts of fences, we cannot but admire the speed, gallantry, and endurance, the essentially game qualities of our English horse. And here I may observe that a good steeple-chaser, properly sobered and brought into his bridle, is one of the pleasantest hunters a man can ride, particularly in a flying country. He is sure to be able to “make haste” in all sorts of ground, while the smooth, easy stride that wins between the flags is invaluable through dirt. He does not lose his head and turn foolish, as do many good useful hunters, when bustled along for a mile or two at something like racing pace. Very quick over his fences, his style of jumping is no less conducive to safety than despatch, while his courage is sure to be undeniable, because the slightest tendency to refuse would have disqualified him for success in his late profession, wherein also, he must necessarily have learnt to be a free and brilliant water-jumper.

Indeed you may always take two liberties with a steeple-chase horse during a run (not more). The first time you squeeze him, he thinks, “Oh! this is the brook!” and putting on plenty of steam, flings himself as far as ever he can. The second, he accepts your warning with equal good will. “All right!” he seems to answer, “This is the brook, coming home!” but if you try the same game a third time, I cannot undertake to say what may happen, you will probably puzzle him exceedingly, upset his temper, and throw him out of gear for the day.

We have travelled a long way, however, from our original subject, tuition of the thorough-bred for the field, or perhaps I should call it the task of turning a bad race-horse into a good hunter.

Like every other process of education this requires exceeding perseverance, and a patience not to be overcome. The irritation of a moment may undo the lessons of a week, and if the master forgets himself, you may be sure the pupil will long remember which of the two was in fault. Never begin a quarrel if it can possibly be avoided, because, when war is actually declared, you must fight it out to the bitter end, and if you are beaten, you had better send your horse to Tattersall’s, for you will never be master again.

Stick to him till he does what you require, trusting, nevertheless, rather to time than violence, and if you can get him at last to obey you of his own free will, without knowing why, I cannot repeat too often, you will have won the most conclusive of victories.

When the late Sir Charles Knightley took Sir Marinel out of training, and brought him down to Pytchley, to teach him the way he should go (and the way of Sir Charles over a country was that of a bird in the air), he found the horse restive, ignorant, wilful, and unusually averse to learning the business of a hunter. The animal, was, however, well worth a little painstaking, and his owner, a perfect centaur in the saddle, rode him out for a lesson in jumping the first day the hounds remained in the kennel. At two o’clock, as his old friend and contemporary, Mr. John Cooke informed me, he came back, having failed to get the rebel over a single fence. “But I have told them not to take his saddle off,” said Sir Charles, sitting down to a cutlet and a glass of Madeira, “after luncheon I mean to have a turn at him again!”

So the baronet remounted and took the lesson up where he had left off. Nerve, temper, patience, the strongest seat, and the finest hands in England, could not but triumph at last, and this thorough-bred pair came home at dinner-time, having larked over all the stiffest fences in the country, with perfect unanimity and good will. Sir Marinel, and Benvolio, also a thorough-bred horse, were by many degrees, Sir Charles has often told me, the best hunters he ever had.Shuttlecock too, immortalized in the famous Billesdon-Coplow poem, when

“Villiers esteemed it a serious bore,
That no longer could Shuttlecock fly as before,”

was a clean thorough-bred horse, fast enough to have made a good figure on the race-course, but with a rooted disinclination to jump.

That king of horsemen, the grandfather of the present Lord Jersey, whom I am proud to remember having seen ride fairly away from a whole Leicestershire field, over a rough country not far from Melton, at seventy-three, told me that this horse, though it turned out eventually one of his safest and boldest fencers, at the end of six weeks’ tuition would not jump the leaping-bar the height of its own knees! His lordship, however, who was blessed in perfection, with the sweet temper, as with the personal beauty and gallant bearing of his race, neither hurried nor ill-used it, and the time spent on the animal’s education, though somewhat wearisome, was not thrown away.

Mr. Gilmour’s famous Vingt-et-un, the best hunter, he protests, by a great deal that gentleman ever possessed, was quite thorough-bred. Seventeen hands high, but formed all over in perfect proportion to this commanding frame, it may easily be imagined that the power and stride of so large an animal made light of ordinary obstacles, and I do not believe, though it may sound an extravagant assertion, there was a fence in the whole of Leicestershire that could have stopped Vingt-et-un and his rider, on a good scenting day some few years ago. Such men and such horses ought never to grow old.

Mr. William Cooke, too, owned a celebrated hunter called Advance, of stainless pedigree, as was December, so named from being foaled on the last day of that month, a premature arrival that lost him his year for racing purposes by twenty-four hours, and transferred the colt to the hunting-stables. Mr. Cooke rode nothing but this class, nor indeed could any animal less speedy than a race-horse, sustain the pace he liked to go.

Whitenose, a beautiful animal that the late Sir Richard Sutton affirmed was not only the best hunter he ever owned, but that he ever saw or heard of, and on whose back he is painted in Sir F. Grant’s spirited picture of the Cottesmore Meet, was also quite thorough-bred. When Sir Richard hunted the Burton country, Whitenose carried him through a run so severe in pace and of such long duration, that not another horse got to the end, galloping, his master assured me, steadily on without a falter, to the last. By the way, he was then of no great age, and nearer sixteen hands than fifteen-two! This was a very easy horse to ride, and could literally jump anything he got his nose over. A picture to look at, with a coat like satin, the eyes of a deer, and the truest action in his slow as in his fast paces, he has always been my ideal of perfection in a hunter.

But it would be endless to enumerate the many examples I can recall of the thorough-bred’s superiority in the hunting-field. Those I have mentioned belong to a by-gone time, but a man need not look very narrowly into any knot of sportsmen at the present day, particularly after a sharpish scurry in deep ground, before his eye rests on the thin tail, and smoothly turned quarters, that need no gaudier blazon to attest the nobility of their descent.

If you mean, however, to ride a thorough-bred one, and choose to make him yourself, do not feel disappointed that he seems to require more time and tuition than his lower-born cousins, once and twice removed.

In the first place you will begin by thinking him wanting in courage! Where the half-bred one, eager, flurried, and excited, rushes wildly at an unaccustomed difficulty, your calmer gentleman proceeds deliberately to examine its nature, and consider how he can best accomplish his task. It is not that he has less valour, but more discretion! In the monotonous process of training, he has acquired, with other tiresome tricks, the habit of doing as little as he can, in the different paces, walk, canter, and gallop, of which he has become so weary. Even the excitement of hunting till hounds really run, hardly dissipates his aristocratic lethargy, but only get him in front for one of those scurries that, perhaps twice in a season turn up a fox in twenty minutes, and if you dare trust him, you will be surprised at the brilliant performance of your idle, negligent, wayward young friend. He bends kindly to the bridle he objected to all the morning, he tucks his quarters in, and scours through the deep ground like a hare, he slides over rather than jumps his fences, with the easy swoop of a bird on the wing, and when everything of meaner race has been disposed of a field or two behind, he trots up to some high bit of timber, and leaps it gallantly without a pause, though only yesterday he would have turned round to kick at it for an hour!

Still, there are many chances against your having such an opportunity as this. Most days the hounds do not run hard. When they do, you are perhaps so unfortunate as to lose your start, and finally, should everything else be in your favour, it is twenty to one you are riding the wrong horse!

Therefore, the process of educating your young one, must be conducted on quieter principles, and in a less haphazard way. If you can find a pack of harriers, and their master does not object, there is no better school for the troublesome or unwilling pupil. But remember, I entreat, that horsebreaking is prejudicial to sport, and most unwelcome. You are there on sufferance, take care to interfere with nobody, and above all, keep wide of the hounds! The great advantage you will find in harehunting over the wilder pursuit of the fox, is in the circles described by your game. There is plenty of time to “have it out” with a refuser, and indeed to turn him backwards and forwards if you please, over the same leap, without fear of being left behind. The “merry harriers” are pretty sure to return in a few minutes, and you can begin again, with as much enthusiasm of man and horse as if you had never been out of the hunt at all! Whip and spur, I need hardly insist, cannot be used too sparingly, and anything in the shape of haste or over-anxiety is prejudicial, but if it induces him to jump in his stride, you may ride this kind of horse a turn faster at his fences, than any other. You can trust him not to be in too great a hurry, and it is his nature to take care of himself. Till he has become thoroughly accustomed to his new profession, it is well to avoid such places as seem particularly distasteful and likely to make him rebel. His fine skin will cause him to be a little shy of thick bullfinches, and his sagacity mistrusts deep or blind ditches, such as less intelligent animals would run into without a thought. Rather select rails, or clean upright fences, that he can compass and understand. Try to imbue him with love for the sport and confidence in his rider. After a few weeks, he will turn his head from nothing, and go straighter, as well as faster, and longer than anything in your stable.

An old Meltonian used to affirm that the first two articles of his creed for the hunting season were, “a perfectly pure claret, and thorough-bred horses.” Of the former he was unsparing to his friends, the latter he used freely enough for himself. Certainly no man gave pleasanter dinners, or was better carried, and one might do worse than go to Melton with implicit reliance on these twin accessories of the chase. All opinions must be agreed, I fancy, about the one, but there are still many prejudices against the other. Heavy men especially declare they cannot find thorough-bred horses to carry them, forgetting, it would seem, that size is no more a criterion of strength than haste is of speed. The bone of a thorough-bred horse is of the closest and toughest fibre, his muscles are well developed, and his joints elastic. Do not these advantages infer power, no less than stamina, and in our own experience have we not all reason to corroborate the old-fashioned maxim, “It is action that carries weight”? Nimrod, who understood the subject thoroughly, observes with great truth, that “‘Wind’ is strength; when a horse is blown a mountain or a mole-hill are much the same to him,” and no sportsman who has ever scaled a Highland hill to circumvent a red-deer, or walk up to “a point,” will dispute the argument. What a game animal it is, that without touch of spur, at the mere pleasure and caprice of a rider, struggles gallantly on till it drops!

There used to be a saying in the Prize Ring, that “Seven pounds will lick the best man in England.” This is but a technical mode of stating that, cÆteris paribus, weight means strength. Thirty years ago, it was a common practice at Melton to weigh hunters after they were put in condition, and sportsmen often wondered to find how the eye had deceived them, in the comparative tonnage, so to speak, and consequently, the horse-power of these different conveyances; the thorough-bred, without exception, proving far heavier than was supposed.

An athlete, we all know, whether boxer, wrestler, pedestrian, cricketer or gymnast, looks smaller in his clothes, and larger when he is stripped. Similarly, on examining in the stable, “the nice little horse” we admired in the field, it surprises us to find nearly sixteen hands of height, and six feet of girth, with power to correspond in an animal of which we thought the only defect was want of size. A thorough-bred one is invariably a little bigger, and a great deal stronger than he looks. Of his power to carry weight, those tall, fine men who usually ride so judiciously and so straight, are not yet sufficiently convinced, although if you ask any celebrated “welter” to name the best horse he ever had, he is sure to answer, “Oh! little 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 well-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 extraordinary 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 vertebrÆ as a crocodile, and Colonel Wyndham whose size and superiority in the saddle I have already mentioned, hesitated a week before he bought 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 points whatever to catch the eye. It was tall, narrow, plain-headed, with very bad shoulders, and very long legs, all this to carry at least eighteen stone; but it was nearly, if not quite, thorough-bred.

We need hardly dwell on the advantages of speed and endurance, inherited from the Arab, and improved, as we fondly hope, almost to perfection, through the culture of many generations, while even the fine temper of the “desert-born” has not been so warped by the tricks of stable-boys, and the severity of turf-discipline, but that a little forbearance and kind usage soon restores its natural docility.

In all the qualities of a hunter, the thorough-bred horse, is, I think, superior to the rest of his kind. You can hardly do better than buy one, and “make him to your hand,” should you be blessed with good nerves, a fine temper, and a delicate touch, or, wanting these qualities, confide him to some one so gifted, if you wish to be carried well and pleasantly, in your love for hunting, perhaps I should rather say, for the keen and stirring excitement we call “riding to hounds.”