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AFTER a long life how few horses or ponies can any man look back upon as "real clinkers," but when blessed with one, how he loved and gloried in him. He may have been a racehorse, a steeplechaser, a hunter, a pig-sticker, a polo pony, a hack, or a trotter, chacun à son goût, but to each one of us he was, or ought to have been, a part of our life.

You often hear a man say of a horse, "Oh! he's a rattling good hunter, but can't jump timber, or won't face water." I never think you can or ought to call a horse a "hunter," and you certainly cannot call him a "6 clinker," unless he will carry you safely over every class of jumpable fence, nor can he be called a hunter unless he has pace enough to live with hounds. What is the use, if hounds run, of a horse that cannot gallop and keep with them, or that stops at any fence, determinedly; you are out of the hunt at once. What people call a good slow hunter is, to my mind, a horse to be avoided, and should have no place in the stable of any man who wants to see hounds. But there is a vast difference between what some people call hunting, and seeing hounds.

Fortunately I've been blessed, for being a poor man I could

never afford to pay a big price for horses, and yet in my small way I have had perhaps more than my share of "real clinkers." I will only touch on those horses which I have owned myself, and tell of their virtues, vices, and performances; but I could give many tales of "real clinkers"— though some of their owners did not know what they had got in them-which I have ridden, belonging to my friends, for I was a light weight, and my friends were many and kind, as all true sportsmen are, so that I often got mounted by them.

I had one dear old horse, a hunter, that stands out by himself in my memory. No horse that ever "looked through a bridle" could beat him to hounds, and that is a big word; but it was the opinion of all who ever knew him and

saw him over & country, and their name was legion, for I hunted him for ten seasons in very many countries, both in England and Ireland, and he was quickly known wherever he went, and his fame had often preceded him. His memory lives in many countries even to this day, though all who ever knew him are grey in the beard. Yet many an old pal greets me to-day with, "Well, old Ballyragget, how are you?"

No hounds could go too fast for him, no country could be too strong or too intricate for him, for he was as wise as a man, in fact wiser than many, and he loved hounds and insisted on being with them. The "narrow back" of Meath, with its yawning ditch always towards you, as the Irishman expresses it, the fair stone wall of Galway or the nasty treacherous one of Louth, the wide stretch of gleaming water or the ugly stiff hogbacked stile, the sheep-net of Yorkshire, which is a terror to most, or the iron railings round an enclosure, were all one to old Bally. He knew them all, and seemed to instil the feeling into you, as plainly as if he was saying it: Trust to me, and you are safe. And you

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notice of anything, fellows riding and galloping all about and around him; but at the first whimper of a hound, often before I heard it myself, up would go his head, and with ears pricked he would stand still as a statue, listening, not a move, though I often felt his heart beating between my knees from excitement. But no fuss: it was real business as well as pleasure with him. He knew a View Holloa and Gone Away as well as I did, but he would not move until you gave him the “office,” and then look out! No need to wait for the crowd in the gateway or gap; turn his head where you wanted him to go; that Gone Away had been enough for him, and he was off like a shot from a gun. Reaching into his snafflebridle, for he would never stand a curb, he would pull you almost out of your saddle till he got into the field with the hounds racing in front of him; after that your troubles were over, and he would drop his head to your hand and keep his pace and his place. Like most high-couraged good 'uns he had his peculiarities, and sometimes was a bit of a handful if you did not know him, he was 80 keen and powerful; so I never put anyone else on him, and he and I at that time lived for and understood each other. Well, he taught me not only how to ride but how to ride to hounds, and I owe the dear old fellow a very deep debt of gratitude.

Got by Lord Waterford's "Red Wing" out of a three

parts bred Irish mare, he was a bright bay with black points and not a white hair, a beautiful quality head and full eye, standing 16.2 and up to sixteen stone, the quickest and finest fencer I have ever sat on, and fast enough to live with any hounds; in fact, with a little more pace he would have been a Grand National horse, for at his own pace he could stay for ever. And I was twenty-two, and riding under eleven stone! Think of it! Could you ask for greater bliss? Could the heart of man desire more?

I gave thirty sovereigns for him, and was several times offered £500 for him- a very big price for a hunter in those days, equal to £1000 now; but my answer always was: I am a poor man with few horses, you a rich one with many; if he is worth £500 to you he is worth £1000 to me, as I can rely on him to carry me two days a-week all the season, and see hounds over any country, and pick me up a little steeplechase at the end of it, and pay for his grub, which, as long as he and I live-and only death shall part us-shall be of the best

And I never will part by a sale or a Swop

With my Clipper that stands in the stall at the top."

And it was so.

The way I got him was curious. Bought at Ballyragget in Kilkenny by one of the dearest of gentlemen, Major Cass of my regiment, the 10th Hussars, he was sold to him for

ninety sovereigns as a five-yearold, as he was said to be so clumsy that he could not get over an Irish country. Clumsy! The cleverest and quickest fencer man ever sat upon. The truth was, he was highcouraged and keen, a big jumper, and a very strong raking galloper, and would not stand his mouth being pulled about. Major Cass bought him at the end of one season, summered him, got on him fresh at the beginning of the next season in Yorkshire with a severe double bridle, and not being gifted with the best of hands or the nerve of youth, was promptly run away with round and round a field. Then he turned him in despair at a big bull-finch, thinking to stop him, but dear old Bally, bold as a lion, half-blown, jumped as big as he could, rolled head over heels into the next field, and the kind old Major went to bed for three weeks. "It's an ill wind that blows nobody good." He said he was a brute, and that any one might have him for thirty sovereigns, consequently no one would look at him, and had I not, fortunately for myself, turned up when I did, some weeks afterwards, he would have been sent to the hammer and sold for what he would fetch.

Being a poor "cornet," lov. ing a hunt, and in those days loving a "brute," for I really preferred "a handful" then to a made horse, and loved training and breaking them in, I said I'd take him, though I'd never seen him. We went to look at him, and I walked up

to him in his stall, had him stripped, and said, "Major, he's mine." "Have a ride on him," said Major Cass. "No, thanks, he'll do," said I; but he insisted, and Bally was brought out, and with a leg up I was on his back. How well How well I remember it! With a double bridle and noseband, and a tight curb, his head low down to the ground, reaching into his bridle, he took me in that long slinging trot which only a big, powerful, well-bred horse has, right up to the barrack gates, where the sentry stopped him-I couldn't. Turned round, back he went to the stables, where I jumped off, and said, "Come on, Major, I'll give you a cheque.' "Well," said he, "take him if you like, my dear boy, but I tell you he's a real brute; he can't gallop, he can't jump, but he's a good walker, and he can and will run away with you." "All right," said I; "if he's a good walker, he can do something else," and thus I fortunately became the possessor of dear old Ballyragget, the best friend a young sportsman ever possessed.

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I had him led on next morning to a meet of the York and Ainsty, about fifteen miles off. We found a fox. The hounds went away and so did he, keen as mustard, for he had had nothing but oats and quiet exercise for two months. Shaking his head low to the ground, fighting at his heavy double bridle and noseband which they assured me was the only thing you could possibly hold him in, he hardly seemed to see or rise at the first two

fences, but got through or over them somehow, and not till the middle of the third field could I really get a pull at him. Then I jumped off, put the curb in my pocket, let the bit down as low as I could in his mouth, jumped on his back, and said to him, "Now, you beggar, you may rip!" Finding his head practically loose, up it went, and in about three fences he dropped to my hand, never made another mistake, and I had a ripping ride. From that day till he died he never again knew what a double bridle and curb meant, or felt the indignity of whip or spur. But he could pull a bit sometimes on a snaffle. He never had a good mouth, though he and I got to know one another so well that I could have ridden him almost with my voice and a pack - thread. I am a great believer in the human voice with all animals.

His first notable performance was with Lord Middleton's hounds in Yorkshire. There were great festivities at the present Lord Middleton's coming of age, a big ball, and lawn meet at Birdsall, for which all the houses round were filled, and many first-class wellmounted sportsmen and sportswomen from the neighbouring packs meant to "do or die " the next morning. We found a fox in the laurels close to the house. There was a holloa forrard, most of the field galloped off down the ride, whilst I and a few others stopped back and listened. The fox turned short back with the hounds close at him, and with

a breast-high scent they rattled him through the laurels, back past the house, and he was away pointing for Sledmere, with nothing to hold him till he got there. Nor was there anything to stop hounds; but those steep undulations on the Wolds take the puff out of horses, and the double flights of rails take a bit of doing, as those who know that country will tell you.

Some of the field who had been left (and how mad they were about it afterwards) managed to cut in about half-way, but they had to gallop so hard to do so that they were soon out of the hunt again, and for the last mile or so I saw nothing but the hounds racing in front one gallant young farmer close with them, another a hundred yards or so behind him, and I was about the same distance again behind him, and we could none of us gain a yard on one another or the hounds, for they were still racing with never a check. Not another soul was in sight. I found my two gallant sportsmen in the road, looking at the park palings into Sledmere, with their horses dead beat. "Come up," and old Bally was over and into the covert, and he and I with the hounds ran the fox to ground about a quarter of a mile farther on. Then I knew I had a "real clinker," as I did not get too good a start, and had to make up a lot of leeway.

I do not know what distance we covered or what time we did it in, as it was the only time I was in that particular

part of the country, but it is about nine miles as the crow flies. I know it was very fast, and a run that was talked of for many a day, and there are possibly some who may remember it yet.

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Some twenty years afterwards I met the huntsman, whom I had never seen since I left that country, out cubhunting one morning with the Essex. I went up to him and said, "Do you remember the gallop from Birdsall to Sledmere? He looked at me and said, "God bless me, sir, were you there?" and on my telling him I was, he said, "Why, we talk of it now, and I remember there was a young officer from the Barracks at York who was the only one with 'em into Sledmere. They slipped me too quick in that crowd in the laurels, and I never could catch 'em; you had to get away on their backs to see 'em,-there was no catching 'em." And he was about right. I have ridden many a longer and harder run, but nothing faster whilst it lasted.

What gentlemen and what gallant fellows those Yorkshire farmers were, and I hope are still, and how straight and hard they used to go, and what good cattle they used to ride. Alas! the days that are no more. Where are those horses now? you could put together out of those two counties, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, as good a stud of hunters as could be found in the world, and that could only be rivalled by farfamed Ireland; big upstanding

In those days

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