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horses generally, without touching upon one or two considerations which are of some importance in shoeing race-horses.

It must always be remembered that different forms and descriptions of feet require differently formed shoes; but, generally speaking, a race-horse requires a much lighter shoe than a roadster, both as regards substance and the degree of cover or protection afforded to the sole. If a horse be low in his pasterns, he will most probably possess a flat foot with weak open heels; and, on the other hand, if upright, his heels will most probably be strong and narrow: doubtless there are exceptions, and whatever imperfections they exhibit, it is desirable to endeavour to remedy them as much as can be within the bounds of rational anticipations.

To avoid danger arising from the probability of a horse tearing his fore shoe off with his hind foot when galloping, the heels of the shoe must not be permitted to extend beyond the heels of the foot, and they should be rounded; neither should the shoe from the quarters to the heels be wider than the foot, as that is a part on which many horses will reach with their hind feet, and the consequence is not unfrequently serious. I do not mean to recommend that a horse should be supplied with shoes which are too short at the heel, or too narrow for the foot, but it is very essential that they be made to fit accurately.

The necessity for removing the shoes very frequently, for the purpose of plating, is commonly an operation attended with considerable inconvenience with horses that are required to run often at country meetings, and especially if they have thin, fragile hoofs; on this account it is desirable that no more fresh nail holes be created than are absolutely required. When the shoes are taken off for the plates to be put on, as a matter of course the nail-holes in each cannot correspond, as those of the latter must be driven nearer to the heels than is compatible with the proper adjustment of the former, otherwise the plates would be certain to be torn off or bent. These circumstances must surely be sufficient to point out the necessity of paying the utmost attention to the care of the feet, and treating them according to their peculiar natures.

Much confusion frequently arises at country meetings, in getting the smiths to plate the horses at a convenient time; the cause of which arises from the fact that most trainers go to stable about the same hour, consequently they all want the smith at the same moment. This inconvenience is greatly enhanced by a local rule at most places, which enforces that every horse shall be plated by a smith who subscribes to the Race-fund; the consequence of which is, that not more than two or three of these artificers qualify themselves; but it would be much more desirable to dispense with their paltry subscriptions, and even charge a portion to the owner of each horse in lieu, if the poverty of the funds require it; thus any competent smith would be eligible, and much trouble and inconvenience avoided. This hint will, I trust, attract the attention of stewards of races and committees, and induce them to erase the present restrictions.

Immediately after the plates are put on, a wet sponge should be applied to them, so as to create an incrustation of rust between the

their tongues on a polecat or fitchet, as also on the common house cat, when met with in woods at a distance from home. An extraordinary instance of running a polecat to ground occurred with the Warwickshire hounds some, years ago, when Jack Wood hunted them. I was very young at the time, and had only just begun to take notice of the work of hounds, but knew pretty well when they turned in a big wood of 300 acres, or if they were running in two or three bodies. However, to hunt up to my story, we found a fox in the Kenilworth Woods, and after giving him a devil of a dusting for about two hours, ran him to ground in a small head of earths in that well-known cover-Long Meadow Wood. I was attending to the cry of the hounds, just before they went to ground, expecting to hear them stop and kill their fox, when suddenly they were divided into two bodies, both of which ran to ground at the same place, and within one minute of each other. Upon going down to the earth, I remarked to Jack Wood, that there were two scents, and I fancied a brace of foxes were gone to ground.

"There were two scents," said Wood; "but I am sure there have never been two foxes before the hounds this morning: it certainly did appear very strange for them to divide as they did during the last ring; but we shall see.”

We dug down, and first of all found a huge polecat, and in a few more minutes (the terrier still keeping at work) the hunted fox.

"Well done, Master!" said Jack Wood, "you have got the best ear, for a young one, I ever met with in my life."

I felt half a foot higher upon the strength of such a compliment from such a quarter.

In the spring of the year hounds are frequently more inclined to be riotous than earlier in the season, for the following reasons:-In the first place, March winds are great promoters of wildness; and, in the next, the old Jack-hares smell so awfully strong, during that peculiar period, that old hounds, which were considered perfectly steady before, have suddenly broke away, on hare scents, in the most determined and ungovernable manner. Moreover, when there is any vice bred in young hounds, it is allowed, by all huntsmen, to show itself at that peculiar season of the year. In the spring, I have also frequently seen a pack of hounds leave the line of a vixen fox, and refuse to hunt her: this may appear strange, but it is perfectly true; and I have no hesitation in saying, that nine old huntsmen out of ten will confirm what I have written, from their own experience. Another thing which contributes to the rendering of young hounds, or even old ones, skirters and shifty in their work, as it is termed, is the practice of continually cub-hunting them in gorse or whin covers, as they are enabled when distressed to come to the outsides, and meet the fox in the rides and rackways. This, however, is unavoidable in some open countries, where this description of covers abounds without any woodlands. No pack of hounds can be made and kept steady, in my opinion, without a good drilling, at the commencement of the season, in large holding woods; and I have no hesitation in saying, that a pack which can do their work as they ought to do, in

deep and extensive covers, running well to the head, and driving abreast without tailing or skirting, would not fail to cut a good figure, and give a good account of their foxes in any country.

Owing to the large, ungovernable fields of horsemen which, in these days, are in the habit of attending hounds, even from the very commencement of the regular hunting season, I have always looked upon the cub-hunting months to be by far the best time for a man fond of the work of hounds, to indulge his venatic taste, without the danger of being either himself ridden over, or having the greater part of his hounds trampled down and destroyed. Long before I kept hounds myself, I was in the constant practice of beginning with the first morning's cub-hunting, and going out regularly, through the summer and autumn, with the pack which hunted my neighbourhood in Warwickshire; and many is the run I have seen in those woodlands, which would not have disgraced December, and many the fox killed when the lazy world were snoring away their time in bed. Even when a schoolboy, I never lost the opportunity, when it offered, of running on foot for miles to get a sight of the hounds, either as they were passing from one cover to draw another, or where they might be even seen for a few minutes on their return home from hunting; and as five of my boyish years were spent with a private tutor in the cream of the Pytchley country, it is not much to be wondered at that the innate love of hunting should have been cherished till it became "the ruling passion," and that the remembrance of those early and dearly-loved scenes round Hemplow Hills and Winwick Warren should be amongst the fondest of my by-gone days.

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My first brush," that trophy so sought for and valued by the old school, now become by far too dirty and odoriferous for the white gloves of the modern fox-hunter, was gained in that Paradise of chase, Northamptonshire. It was late in the month of March, during the season of 1816 and 1817, when the quiet village of Guilsborough was aroused from its accustomed tranquillity by the cry of the Pytchley hounds, at that time the property of Lord Althorp: they had run their fox, after a most brilliant burst of fifty minutes, from Nethercote's Gorse up to the gardens which surround the village, and amongst a most heterogeneous mass of cobblers, tailors, and snobs of every grade, and curs of low degree, they killed him.' Not having far to run from the house of my tutor, I was lucky enough to my place" at "the finish," and by the joint assistance of a large stick and a few kicks from the hobnails of a yokel, the fox was saved; and I bore him away in triumph into the middle of the next field. But where are the horsemen? Where is Chas. King? Where is Jack Wood? Where is Mr. Bouverie? Where is Vere Isham ? Where is Davy, cum multis aliis? In the middle of Naseby Field, lost in a fog, and floundering their way through those far-famed receptacles for beaten horses, the Naseby Bogs. Why, the fox has been killed these ten minutes! But here comes one in a cap; 'tis Jack Wood first; and five minutes more come 66 the field." It was a good run, and a good finish-all were delighted, and none more so than he who on that day gained his "first brush,"

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It was under the keen eye and by the quick discerning judgment of Jack Wood, that the far-famed Warwickshire pack, then the property of Mr. Shirley, was first formed, in a great measure from hounds esteemed, by good judges, of the very best blood in England, besides the progeny of several stud hounds from Northamptonshire, amongst them the renowned Laundress, Darling, and Ottoman, bred by the late Lord Sondes; they had several stallions and brood bitches from the kennel of the late Duke of Beaufort, of the Dorimont and Nectar blood; and with such materials in the hands of so skilful and experienced a person, it was no wonder that in a few years a pack was produced which might compete in steadiness, speed, and the qualities of enduring, with any other in the world. Of their extreme steadiness in chase I think the following anecdote will bear ample testimony. It was in the December of the year 1829, when the pack were under the management of that well-known and excellent sportsman, Mr. Robert Fellowes, of Shotesham, in Norfolk (but who then resided at Talton, near Shipston-on-Stour), that the circumstance to which I allude occurred. An afternoon-fox was found at Witnash-gorse, and it being a good scent, and the hounds getting away close at his bush, a tremendous burst over a severe country was the consequence; pointing at first for Oakley-wood and then bending to the left, the direction taken was over part of the Chesterton enclosures and Harbury-field. At this point a hare jumped up in view of the whole pack, who were at that time driving along with a breast-high scent, and continued to run for at least half a mile in the exact direction which had been taken by the fox. The anxiety and despair depicted in their huntsman's face at this moment may be better imagined than described; the pace was so great that to get at them, or attempt to stop them, would have been impossible. Turning to me, who happened to be at that moment in a pretty good place, he exclaimed, "By G-, sir, they are running hare! and yet," said he, pausing for a few moments, "they cannot be, for old Bashful* is leading." He was right in his second supposition, for the hare finding himself distressed, turned short across the field, and this gallant pack kept straight forward upon the line of their fox, without one single hound deigning to look for one moment in which direction she had taken herself off out of their way. Forty-three minutes completed this excellent run up to Itchington-heath, and in four more minutes the fate of the fox was sealed, and his death proclaimed by a thrilling who-whoop. This incident, to the common run of hard riders, might appear to be without interest, and unworthy to be remarked; but to me, to whom the behaviour of the hounds, and the manner in which they perform their work, are ever of the first consideration in a day's sport, it was particularly striking.

I once had a long conversation with Wm. Shaw, who was many years huntsman to his Grace the Duke of Rutland, upon the system

*By the Duke of Beaufort's Boxer, out of Virulent, who was by the Pytchley Ottoman, out of their Vengeance. This most excellent hound could run up to the very head when in her tenth season.

of entering the puppies to hare in the spring when they first come up from their quarters. He was a great advocate for this plan, and he told me he always practised it, taking them out with two or three couples of old harriers, and declared that he was convinced that when they were thus entered they turned out invariably better hunters afterwards, and that they were by no means more unsteady amongst hares than others which had not been entered in that manner. Nevertheless, with all his experience in the matter, and eloquence into the bargain, he did not succeed in making me a convert to his system, although I believe him to have been a most excellent judge in hunting, and a very first-rate performer both in the field and in the kennel. Old Will Carter, many years huntsman to Sir Mark Sykes, was another of these hare-hunting fox-hunters; he was an outand-outer in his way, and had a very good pack of hounds, as old sportsmen who live in Yorkshire, and who hunted with him for years, have informed me. But they were always, as I understood, fond of "currant jelly" in wild weather. The great Mr. Meynell was, I believe, the first who brought this system into fashion; but, like a good many more of the absurdities of our forefathers, it has now become exploded.

We will now return to the old hounds, which, when we had left them, had just concluded the by-gone season. Their services are now at an end for the present; their energies will no longer be required in the field for at least three months, and, by comparative rest and indulgence, their mutilated feet and battered joints are to be fresh braced up, and their nerves restrung with a new vigour for the labours of the next hunting season; but this rest must not be increased to slothful indolence, nor this indulgence allowed to grow into a contraction of laziness and fat. The stamina is to be preserved by good and nourishing food; but the elasticity of the muscles, and the clearness of the respiratory organs, must be kept in tune by a proportionable quantity of exercise and occasional doses of mild physic and alteratives. Upon the commencement of the dead months it is the custom of most huntsmen to bleed indiscriminately throughout the pack, without regard to age, condition, or constitution. As far as I can judge from my own experience, I should say that it is a most salutary practice, and I never knew any kind of harm arising from it, but, on the contrary, hounds thus treated have always thriven better after it, and have been, in themselves, during the whole of the hot weather in much better spirits and estate of body than when they have not undergone this kind of discipline. The whole pack ought to be bled, with the exception of such as may be very shy feeders and of an exceedingly delicate constitution; the extremely sudden change from high feeding and hard work to a state of comparative idleness, rendered still more heating by the naturally increased warmth of the atmosphere at that period of year, must without doubt create a disposition to form too great a quantity of

*A spayed bitch called Lely, belonging to Mr. Panton, who hunted near Newmarket, ran at the head of his hounds for ten seasons.-Dan. Bu. Sports.

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