VERY DEFECTIVE.
Straight fore-legs, such as are shown in the illustration, are an absolutely essential quality—and they should emerge from the trunk with plenty of firm muscle as well as good fleshy substance. Legs that are too close together, or too far apart, are alike defective, and ought not to be overlooked.
TOO FAR APART.
A hunter for a lady’s use need not, as a rule, be over fifteen hands in height, or about 15·2 for a man of ordinary stature. Of course top-weights of either sex must have something proportionately big to carry them, but my experience is that clever hunters of 15·2 or 3 can negotiate even the biggest country with safety, and I believe there are a greater number of perfect fencers of that height than can be found among those above it. Small horses, whether hunters or steeplechasers, have distinguished themselves brilliantly from time to time all over the world, yet the rage for tall ones is very great. About ten years ago, at the Islington Horse Show, there were forty hunters (out of 100 entries) that were over 16 hands high, and they were among the very first sold, some of them to extremely diminutive purchasers. I was speaking about this a year or two ago to a dealer, and asking him his opinion respecting the cause, when he made me laugh by answering, “Well, you see, big horses makes big fences look a trifle smaller, and that’s something to them as rides.”
I have always considered it a good plan to select a hunter, with due regard to the country in which his purchaser intends to hunt. For example, if hilly, or composed of wide grass lands, or plough, good breeding will be decidedly essential, because with it good staying powers will be combined; if trappy, or difficult, requiring constant pulling up at fences and careful getting over, extreme cleverness will be far more valuable than blood. Even a broken-winded horse will, if cautious and clever, be more useful over such a country, than a flyer or very flippant jumper—because he can catch his wind between his efforts, and will not be likely to exhibit distress.
If you cannot count upon a horse’s pedigree, when looking for a blood one, you can generally judge him by his haunch. I think it an excellent test of breeding. A well-bred haunch and handsomely carried tail, impart a dignity of appearance which is unmistakable, and they are certainly far in advance of the rounded quarter and drooping caudal appendage which my sketch on the succeeding page represent.
Still further commendable points in a hunter are long shoulders, high withers, broad hips, and loose flanks: this latter in order (as I have heard it expressed) that he may “dash” his haunches under him at the big jumps. He should have good shoulder action, but it matters little (as I have said) about that of the knees.
WELL-BRED HAUNCH.