Riding Recollections, 5th ed.

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

I remember in my youth, alas! long ago, “the old sportsman”—a character for whom, I fear, we entertained in my day less veneration than we professed—amongst many inestimable precepts was fond of propounding the following:—

“Young gentleman, nurse your hunter carefully at the beginning of a run, and when the others are tired he will enable you to see the end.”

Now with all due deference to the old sportsman, I take leave to differ with him in toto. By nursing one’s horse, I conclude he meant riding him at less than half-speed during that critical ten minutes when hounds run their very hardest and straightest. If we follow this cautious advice, who is to solve the important question, “Which way are they gone?” when we canter anxiously up to a sign-post where four roads meet, with a fresh and eager horse indeed, but not the wildest notion towards which point of the compass we should direct his energies? We can but stop to listen, take counsel of a countryman who unwittingly puts us wrong, ride to points, speculate on chances, and make up our minds never to be really on terms with them again!

No, I think on the contrary, the best and most experienced riders adopt a very different system. On the earliest intimation that hounds are “away,” they may be observed getting after them with all the speed they can make. Who ever saw Mr. Portman, for instance, trotting across the first field when his bitches were well out of covert settling on the line of their fox?—and I only mention his name because it occurs to me at the moment, and because, notwithstanding the formidable hills of his wild country and the pace of his flying pack, he is always present at the finish, to render them assistance if required, as it often must be, with a sinking fox.

“The first blow is half the battle” in many nobler struggles than a street-brawl with a cad, and the very speed at which you send your horse along for a few furlongs, if the ground is at all favourable, enables you to give him a pull at the earliest opportunity, without fear lest the whole distant panorama of the hunt should fade into space while you are considering what to do next.

Not that I mean you to over-mark, or push him for a single stride, beyond the collected pace at which he travels with ease and comfort to himself; for remember he is as much your partner as the fairest young lady ever trusted to your guidance in a ball-room: but I do mean that you should make as much haste as is compatible with your mutual enjoyment, and, reflecting on the capricious nature of scent, take the chance of its failure, to afford you a moment’s breathing-time when most required.

At all periods of a fox-chase, be careful to anticipate a check. Never with more foresight than when flying along in the ecstasy of a quick thing, on a brilliant hunter. Keep an eye forward, and scan with close attention every moving object in front. There you observe a flock of sheep getting into line like cavalry for a charge—that is where the fox has gone. Or perhaps a man is ploughing half-a-mile further on; in all probability this object will have headed him, and on the discretion with which you ride at these critical moments may depend the performance of the pack, the difference between “a beautiful turn” and “an unlucky check.” The very rush of your gallop alongside them will tempt high-mettled hounds into the indiscretion of over-running their scent. Whereas, if you take a pull at your horse, and give them plenty of room, they will swing to the line, and wheel like a flock of pigeons on the wing.

Always ride, then, to command hounds if you can, but never be tempted, when in this proud position, to press them, and to spoil your own sport, with that of every one else.