There is one purpose for which thoroughbreds are certainly necessary. Hunters must be of thoroughbred blood. There are horses not of thoroughbred blood that can be taught to jump, but a hunter must also be able to run. It is often said that hunting in this country is not serious, and that is probably true. Hunting over timber is too dangerous to be widely and generally practised. It is different from hunting over hedges, which can be broken through. A horse must clear a wood fence if he is to get over it safely. If he strikes the fence with his knees, he may turn a somersault and fall on his rider, and horses cannot be relied upon to clear fences. The most celebrated of English hunters, Assheton Smith, who had made a study of falling and had learned how to fall, had sixty falls the year he was eighty. (By the way, one wonders what kind of horses he rode; they could have done better for him than that in Virginia.) We may be sure he did not have those falls over timber.
But it is not certain that hunting has no considerable future in this country. Knowing what the spirit of sport has accomplished here within the memory of most of us, there is no saying what it may yet do. I have sometimes wondered why some such large preserves of land, stretches of forest and meadow as are taken by clubs for shooting and fishing, are not set apart for hunting, in which it would be possible to hunt the stag and the fox or even to revive sports more old fashioned.
I lately found a hunting-man in Virginia, a nice fellow and a gentleman, who has a whole valley to himself in which to pursue the fox. He has his own pack of hounds, and as his business is training hunters, he has always in his stable half a dozen animals he can use. To be sure he does not own the valley, a beautiful one; but he is quite as well off as though he did, for there are no wire fences, the timber fences are not too plentiful, and he tells me he can always start a fox. He hunts entirely alone, and does not mind the lack of company. He happens to be afflicted with an infirmity of speech, which makes the society of all but a few of his fellow-creatures irksome to him. This kind of sport was a new idea to me, who had always thought of hunting as done in company and with the accompaniment of red coats and blowing horns and the like. It struck me as a pretty idea, quite like Fitz-James’s pursuit of the stag in the first canto of “The Lady of the Lake.” This gentleman rides mostly thoroughbreds. He told me that he found it more and more necessary to ride thoroughbreds, or, at any rate, horses as clean bred as he could get them, for the reason that they are now breeding faster hounds than formerly. I wondered why they should breed faster dogs unless at the same time they bred faster foxes.
From a painting by Richard Newton, Jr.
THE MASTER OF FOX HOUNDS, ORANGE COUNTY HUNT (NEW YORK), ON HIS THOROUGHBRED HUNTER, GREEK DOLLAR
I may add that the evidence in favor of fox-hunting is pretty strong, to judge from the testimony of those who know most about it. A celebrated hunter has expressed the opinion that all the time that is not spent in hunting is wasted, and that is what men like Assheton Smith and Anstruther Thompson really thought and have thought for two hundred years. If that view is the correct one, the sport will probably continue to exist and grow in this country. In the end Americans are likely to have whatever is good.
With regard to the questions of type and taste, I may say here that a certain deference is due to the opinion which the world’s best horsemen have long entertained. We should not dismiss too lightly the views of such men as Admiral Rous, Assheton Smith, and Mackenzie Grieve. The last-named famous horseman, who lived in Paris and was a member of the well-known Jockey Club there, I once saw in his old age in Rotten Row. One afternoon in Hyde Park I noticed an acquaintance on foot in conversation over the railing with some one on a black horse. The horse, which had not a white hair, was a beautiful creature, of the kind not usual in Rotten Row, having the graceful curves of the haute école, preferred on the Continent, and attractive to the finer Latin perceptions rather than the straight lines of the half-bred English hack. The horse of the haute école is very thoroughbred in type, however, as this animal was. But perfect as the horse was, I was even more interested in the man in the saddle. All he was doing was sitting on a horse that was standing still, but there was a singular grace in his manner of doing this. The pose and attitude were beautiful. An old dandy, much made up, and dyed to the eyebrows, there was in every detail of his dress, from his silk hat to his patent-leather boots, a correctness and thoroughness that argued great courage and spirit in a man of his age. The tight trousers of some dark color were worn over Wellington boots, which a good London tailor will tell you is the only way to have them set well. The frock-coat showed the slender waist essential to good looks in the saddle. I wondered if this waist might not be the result of pretty severe banting, being sure that the plucky old fellow would have preferred death to abating one jot his pretensions to the character of a perfect horseman. Greatly interested in this survivor of the dandies, it pleased me to think that he might in his youth have been the model from which Bulwer made his sketch of Pelham riding in the park in Paris. Some days later, happening to meet my acquaintance, I asked him who his friend was, and he told me that he was Mr. Mackenzie Grieve. Before forming a final opinion of the thoroughbred from the point of view of taste and beauty, I should like to consult the shade of Mackenzie Grieve. His opinions, whatever they were, he no doubt held strongly.
When we come to speak of horses partly thoroughbred (and that is of course the subject most interesting to breeders), I can say that I myself have known numbers of them that were neither flighty nor weedy nor wanting in physical stamina nor deficient in gaits or in looks. I may take occasion to mention one or two of these. There was a big roan mare, nearly thoroughbred, in my native county, which was sent to New York and was for some years ridden by an eminent lawyer. She was a most distinguished horse. No matter how many good horses this gentleman has ridden or may ride, he can never forget Betsey, nor be in danger of confusing her with any other horse. She was sixteen hands high, and in condition would weigh nearly twelve hundred pounds. She had been a favorite runner at county fairs and of course could gallop. She could walk like a storm, she had a single foot that was a lullaby, she had a perfectly square trot, she was excellent in harness, and she could be ridden or driven by anybody. A little plain in the quarters, she had as fine a neck, head, and shoulders as I ever saw. “She has a grand front on her,” said the owner’s young Irish coachman, who knew the type. I had at first some misgivings as to the appearance she would make by the side of New York prize-winners; but when I went to the Riding Club and she was brought out with the saddle on, her fine head carried high, her large, prominent eyes awake, with her deep shoulder and sweep of neck looking as though she had just descended from one of the classic engravings of the eighteenth century, I wondered that I should have had any doubts as to the appearance she would make when put in competition with the equine upstarts of the present day.