The Piedmont Hunt Race Meet—There is a distinct note of histrionism about many of the rich Americans who "go in for" elaborate ruralness, and there is a touch of it, also, about ultra-"horsey" people
About the races themselves there was something fascinatingly nonprofessional. They bore the same relation to great races on great tracks that a very fine performance of a play by amateurs might bear to a professional performance.
First came a two-mile steeplechase, with brush hurdles. Then, after a couple of minor events, a four-mile point-to-point race for hunters ridden by gentlemen in hunt uniform. This was as stiff a race for both horses and riders as I have ever seen, and it was very picturesque to watch the pink coats careering up hill and down dale, now over a tall stone wall, now over a brook or a snake fence; and when a rider went head over heels, and lay still upon the ground where he fell, while his horse cantered along after the field, in that aimless and pathetic way that riderless horses have, one had a real sensation—which was the pleasanter for knowing, a few minutes later, that the horseman had only broken an arm.
Next was run a rollicking race for horses owned by farmers, and others, whose land is hunted over by the Piedmont and Middleburg foxhounds; and last occurred a great comedy event—a mule race, free for all, in which one of the hunting men, in uniform, made such a handsome showing against a rabble of white and colored boys, all of them yelling, all of them beating their long-eared animals with sticks, that he would have won, had he not deliberately pulled his mount and "thrown" the race.
The last event was not yet finished when my companion, who had become nervous about his interurban trolley, got into a machine to drive to Bluemont.
"Of course," he said as we parted, "we'll miss you to-night."
"Oh," I said, "I hope not. I expect to get there."
"I don't see how you can make it," said he. "You have a lot of material to gather."
"I shall work fast."