Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/201

189 THE HUNTER.] HORSE 189 person standing in the centre holding a lunge rein, while an assistant is present with a whip, which should, however, be used but sparingly. lleally good water junipers are so scarce that it would well repay the owner of a promising young one to teach him, or have him taught, this most important part of a hunter s business. If a small water course can be found handy, it will do for a commencement ; the colt should, in his early days, be led over this ; and, if possible, the place should be widened gradually, and the water dammed up, the colt being always lunged over it before being ridden, and when ridden led over by an old horse. The same course should be pursued in the case of dry ditches, and hedges with a ditch on the taking off side, both of which must be jumped boldly, if the rider wish to keep his place with hounds. This gradual teaching, and the trouble it undoubtedly entails, may sound too theoretical to some who are desirous of turning out a finished hunter in the space of six weeks ; but it is to this hurrying, and the substitution of coercive measures for time and gentleness, that we are to attribute the number of indifferent hunters we find. Every hunting man knows the enormous prices realized by really clever hunters; and these animals are simply ordinary horses on whose education much trouble has been expended. Qualifi- Qualifications for a Hunter. Of horses equally good jumpers, cations and equally fast, that will be most valuable which can gallop and for a jump with the greatest weight on his back. Very good horses for hunter. 10 or 11 stone can be obtained at any time, and at a moderate price, but a horse up to weight will always fetch a large sum. Whatever weight has to be carried, mere size must not be con founded with power; a horse 16^ hands high is not necessarily a weight carrier. A compact well-knit frame is of primary import ance ; and although it is a task of great difficulty to explain the points of a horse on paper, the intending buyer may with advantage have his attention drawn to some of the more important requisites. To cross a country well, the hunter must have long and oblique shoulders ; and, in the case of a weight carrier, they should be rather thick. Should the reader have any difficulty in deciding what oblique shoulders are, he may get some assistance from putting a saddle on a horse, setting it of course in the right place, and then looking at the horse from a side view. Should the horse have good shoulders, the stirrup leather will hang clown at some distance behind the forelegs ; but if, on the other hand, the shoulders be upright, the stirrups will be comparatively close to the forelegs, and, on mounting, the rider will find himself sitting over the legs instead of behind them. Care should be taken, however, that the shoulder is well clothed with muscle. The chest should be broad ; narrow horses are supposed to be faster, but under weight they knock their legs about. The arm must be long, and of course muscular, the knee wide, the &quot;cannon bone (i.e., the bone between the knee and the fetlock) short, and the legs flat, with strong back sinews. The foot should be moderately wide, and have good strong heels, or they will not stand the battering about that falls to the lot of even the most carefully ridden hunter. The chest must be deep (otherwise the horse will in all likelihood be a short-winded one), and as a consequence the girth will be great ; a weight carrier should measure 6 feet 3 inches in condition round the barrel, just where the girth comes. A horse with a well- developed frame, and of large girth, is generally a short-legged horse, as it is called, not that the legs are really shorter very short legs are a deformity but the body is not too small in pro portion to the height of the leg. It is commonly said that the back of a weight carrier must be short ; but this does not mean that the horse should be short from the chest to the tail, for he should have much of his length in his shoulders and quarters. For very heavy men, the back proper should not be long ; but, as a matter of fact, few horses are found the length of whose back would be adjudged perfection. A mode rate length of back is essential to pace, and on this question the late Major Whyte Melville writes as follows : &quot;It may not be out of place here to observe, 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. &quot; The loins should be strong, and the hips wide ; if ragged they will be none the worse. The hind legs are most important, not only because the seat of the propelling power is there, but also because they affect the carriage of the animal, and the way in which he yields to his rider s hand. The thigh should be long and muscular, the hock well bent, and not bending inwards, when the horse is called &quot;cow- hocked,&quot; nor outwards, like a bandy-legged man. The shank bone should be well guarded by strong sinews, and the pasterns mode rately long, and by no means straight. Horses with straight, short pasterns are rough to ride, and ill adapted to stand hard work. So far, then, as the body is concerned, strong legs, wide hips, depth of girth, and a short back, or, more properly, a back not too long, are all important ; but it must be remembered that, beyond a certain point, the development of any extraordinary strength is accompanied by a loss of speed, therefore very heavy men must be content to be carried by an animal not unlike an active cart-horse, for a well-bred horse capable of galloping and jumping under 18 stone is rarely seen, and the few that do exist cannot be acquired except at an enormous outlay. When a man gets on a horse to try him, the formation and the carriage of the head and neck have a great deal to do with the subsequent purchase or rejection of him. If appearance be a sine qua non, the head should be small, but, except for the look of the I thing, the size is immaterial, provided it be well set on to a properly shaped neck, the characteristics of which will be presently explained. The jaws should be wide, as also should the head between the ears. The nostrils, through which alone a horse breathes, should be moderately large, otherwise free respiration will be interfered with. The eye should be bright and full, but not unduly prominent ; small pig-like eyes are nearly certain indications of bad temper. The neck should rise out of the shoulders in an easy curve, and be neither very long nor very short ; muscular it must be, and the principal muscle is the one running along the top of the neck ; a muscular development here is usually accompanied by muscular proportions generally. The strength of the neck is important, because upon this the position of the head depends, and if the head be wrongly placed, the horse will never go pleasantly to the hand; indeed, of such moment is the position of the head that a horse is often unmanageable when his head is in an improper position, although he is easy of control when it is in the right place. A short-necked horse is sure to make the rider carry its head, because, from the lower part being thick, as it must be where it springs from the shoulder, the head cannot be set on at a proper angle. It has been said that a long neck is productive of the same inconvenience, but the better opinions are hostile to this theory, and experience does not tend to convince one that a long- necked horse is necessarily heavy in the hand. A hunter should have a good mouth, and should not pull, both which matters depend a good deal upon the rider, and should not be given to shying. He should, however, be naturally bold, or he may refuse any fence of an uninviting appearance. Good temper is an absolute necessity. A strong and resolute rider may put up with a puller, in consideration of many good points, but a bad-tempered horse is of no use in the field, as he is sure to lose his rider his place in a run ; moreover, a horse that will be wanted all day cannot afford to lose his temper and take what is equal to half an hour s work out of himself at every turn or check, or at every gate-post that may be encountered during the day. Whatever number of good points a hunter may possess, they will all be utterly valueless unless he be sound into the bargain. There are two kinds of soundness, practical and legal. A horse is not legally sound, that is to say, he is legally unsound, if there is any structural alteration, however slight, in any part of his body, though it may not unfit him in any degree for the immediate performance of his duties. To be legally sound, a horse must be in the same perfect state as when foaled ; and each reader must determine for himself how often this can be found in a field of say one hundred horses. To be practically sound, a horse must have nothing the matter with him that is likely to interfere with his duties as a hunter, and he can be in this condition without being legally sound. For instance, suppose a man, after buying a horse warranted sound, take off the shoes and find the smallest possible corn, which would never be felt, nor diminish the value by one penny, that horse is not legally sound, because the corn, small as it is, is held to be a structural alteration ; so, too, a pimple on the body where the saddle would cover it is an unsoundness in a hunter while it lasts, if it prevents the saddle from being put on. A temporary cough is also an unsoundness ; so is lameness caused by being pricked during shoeing ; yet for some of these no man in the world would reject a good hunter. It need hardly be added that any enlarged joints, or other tokens of work, prevent a horse from being legally sound. On the other hand a horse, if not actually lame, is legally sound although its legs are so badly formed that the merest tyro could predict lameness as the inevitable result of half an hour s journey. As to the wind and eyes, however, a hunter should be legally and absolutely sound. The usual method of testing the wind by punching the horse or pinching the windpipe is not quite satisfac tory ; the horse should be galloped. The amateur will do well to get the best veterinary surgeon within reach to examine the eyes of any horse he contemplates buying. Cataract, in its incipient stage, is so difficult to discover that it escapes the notice of any but the most practised person. With regard to the feet and legs, the buyer will have to rest satisfied with an assurance that Uis horse is