CHAPTER X
The breeding of a sufficient number of Hounds need not present any great difficulty, but the breeding of a plentiful supply of hunters will not be so easy. Ireland has been the great reservoir for hunters for many years, but it would appear that in the attempt made in that island during the War to breed light-draught horses, the breeding of hunters has suffered. It is, however, reasonable to expect that the demand will create the supply, especially when one or two plentiful hay harvests have made the keep of hunters more possible. In the meantime, there is no doubt that more hunters can be bred in Great Britain. They are likely to be valuable for some years to come, and it is well worth while, for profit as well as for pleasure, to use every effort to encourage and organize the breeding of hunters in this island.
The most encouraging sign of recent years is the wonderful improvement in the type of thoroughbred hunter sires exhibited at the King’s Premium Show. Ten or fifteen years ago the King’s Cup could be won by a horse who would to-day hardly get a premium, and certainly not a super-premium. In those days five hundred pounds was considered a good price to pay for a King’s Premium winner, and from two to three hundred pounds was somewhere near the normal price; but during the last decade, especially since the super-premium was offered, some exhibitors began to pay as much as or more than a thousand pounds for a horse, with the result that the Show Yard at Islington in March 1916 presented a finer sight than any country in the world could produce. Well over a hundred British thoroughbred stallions under one roof, is an exhibition that has never been equalled anywhere. These magnificent creatures, under the admirable organization of the Board of Agriculture, are available to breeders in all parts of Great Britain for a fee that is not worth talking about. To be able to command for a trifle of one or two guineas the services of a thoroughbred horse who has stood the test of training and won races, does away with all vestige of excuse on the part of the hunting community for not doing its very best to provide the mares and make the attempt to supply the market upon which so much depends. One of the best ways to encourage the breeding of hunters is by a liberal prize-list at shows for brood mares and all stock up to seven years old. Every Hunt in the kingdom might have its own show, or join with neighbouring Hunts for the purpose of holding a joint show. A Hunt Horse Show need not conflict with county shows already established. On the contrary, it will tend to help the county shows by stimulating and widening the local interest in horse-breeding. But its main value lies in the fact that it brings the subscribers to any given pack of Foxhounds into personal and responsible touch with the breeding of the animals which are destined to carry them across country. The subscribers to the show will mostly be the same ladies and gentlemen who subscribe to the Hounds. They attend the show, and there have the opportunity of inspecting all the young horses and made hunters belonging to the farmers in the district. The show might almost become a kind of fair. In addition to farmers’ classes there should also be classes for the subscribers themselves, in which the farmers are invited to exhibit. The breeding of hunters should no longer be left to the farmers alone. It is obviously the wisest policy, if he wants to follow the Hounds on horseback instead of on foot, for every hunting man to keep a brood mare of his own. It may be urged, in answer to all this, that a Hunt Horse Show presents financial difficulties that cannot be overcome. The answers to this objection are, that the breeding of hunters will soon be in a very precarious state unless it is organized and stimulated in every possible way, and that unless hunting people are prepared to reckon the support of breeding as part of the necessary expenses of Fox-hunting, we are within measurable distance of having to hunt on foot. But the financing of a single-day show is not in truth a very formidable operation. The main expense of a two-day show is the vast amount of woodwork used for stables, shelters, and offices. This very heavy item does not occur in the expenses of a one-day show, which can be run on an income which is small compared with its good results.
The next question that arises is how to breed the hunter. The ideal hunter is without doubt the thoroughbred horse up to fourteen or fifteen stone. There are not very many of these animals in existence, but, however difficult to breed, theirs is the type at which we should aim. We already have the thoroughbred sires. There is some difference of opinion as to the selection of mares. One school of thought inclines to the opinion that thoroughbred mares, and most hunter mares, have not the requisite calibre to breed a foal big enough to carry weight in the hunting-field through deep ground and over fences, and that the best chance is to mate a thoroughbred sire with a cart or van mare. It is true that every now and then a fine weight-carrying hunter has been bred from the first cross of these opposite extremes, but whether a mare bred in this way will, in her turn, become a good hunter brood mare is another matter. Some say that by scientifically crossing and recrossing her stock alternately with the thoroughbred and the cart horse, always coming back to the thoroughbred, the right type of weight-carrying hunter should eventually be established. This will take some generations to prove, but the process might be a success in time if strictly carried out on scientific lines by a careful breeder; and a distinct breed of horse for hunting purposes might be evolved, in the same way that the Cleveland Bay and the Hackney have established their identity. At present, however, we have not sufficient data or experience from which to form an opinion. From our experience of the first cross between the thoroughbred and the cart horse, it would seem that the types are too far apart for the experiment to be recommended; such successes as there have been are probably accidental. Six sound, strong van mares with action were carefully chosen, a few years ago, and mated every season with a super-premium thoroughbred sire. In ten years not one of these has bred a hunter; one mare has bred six or seven useful animals, of no very definite character, that can do farm work on light land, or trot to market fairly smartly in a trap. This slight experience is here given for what it is worth. Van mares were chosen as being, perhaps, a shade nearer to the thoroughbred than a cart mare. But even so, this experiment in blending is not very encouraging.
What, then, is the alternative? The only alternative is to go on as we are doing now, and make the very best of the experience we now have. And this experience is in our favour. All the best hunters we have ridden are either purely thoroughbred or got by a thoroughbred sire from a hunter mare with quality inherited from her own father, whose name is in the Stud Book. One of the main values, and certainly the main charm of the animal we all want to ride, is courage. There is nothing more wonderful than the courage of a well-bred horse. Now a plebeian ancestry may conduce to the size of its posterity, but it is not calculated to endow it with courage. Let us therefore make the best possible use of the material we have ready to our hand in the shape of hunter mares, not far removed from the thoroughbred. It is almost a sacred obligation for any one who owns a mare of this kind either to breed from her or else to take every means in his power to see that she is bred from—supposing that he has to part with her.
Let us now imagine that we have bred the animal we want, and that he is four years old. Whether for our own comfort or for the purpose of selling him to our friends, he should be thoroughly well broken in every respect before he goes out for his first morning’s Cub-hunting. There is nothing more important, from every point of view, than teaching a horse good manners when he is young. He should, at an early age, be trained so that he will stand stock-still while he is being mounted and until the rider gives him the signal to move. Very few horses are really taught to do this properly. He should open gates, and be accustomed to wait, with the reins on his neck, if his rider wants to use both hands to lift a gate that cannot be opened with the whip. He should allow a whip to be cracked by his rider on either side or over his head without flinching. If he is highly strung, nervous, and ticklish, too much pains cannot be taken to get him used to the touch of hands and straps all over his body. In order to do this, it is not a bad plan to teach him when he is three years old to draw a very light harrow or bush or log of wood, driving him from behind with long reins. It will not even diminish his value if he is regularly broken to harness. He should, of course, be absolutely quiet with all road nuisances, and if he can be brought up in the constant companionship of dogs, so much the better. Stress is laid on all this because the possession of good manners by the animal we ride makes all the difference to the comfort and pleasure of a day’s hunting. In addition, it is of course postulated that his mouth is properly made, and that his make and shape are such that he can move well in all his paces and be able to gallop fast. If so, he is at four years old not very far from being a made hunter. “You can teach him to jump,” said a wise and witty judge of horses, “but you cannot teach him to gallop”; and, indeed, the teaching of a young horse to jump is the easiest and most delightful part of his tuition. Nearly all horses come to it in time; some do it more comfortably than others; some seem to be natural jumpers the very first time they are asked to get over a country; but there are surprisingly few horses who are really bad jumpers. The proof of this is that, out of a large Field, many indifferent riders are mounted on indifferent horses and still manage to get over big fences with comparatively few mistakes, even if they are not in the first flight. But, in spite of this, our young horse should be given every chance of acquiring the accomplishment with confidence and ease. For this purpose it is well that he should be driven with long reins over fences when he is young, before he is ridden over them. Captain Hayes’ long-rein system cannot be beaten for breaking and mouth-making young horses, as well as for teaching them to jump. The tackle required is a thick unjointed snaffle, a standing martingale with clips to fix on to the rings of the snaffle, a strong surcingle with a ring set on low down on either side, and a pair of reins about eight yards long made of webbing with loops at the ends. The offside rein should pass from the snaffle ring through the ring on the surcingle, and be brought round just above the hocks to the right hand of the driver, whose proper place is on the nearside of the horse, a few feet to the rear. The nearside rein should pass straight from the ring of the snaffle to the left hand of the driver, who should never let go of the loop, even if he has to shorten the rein. He is now at the apex of a triangle, of which the horse forms the base and the two reins the sides. He can drive his horse either straight ahead or in a circle, taking care to keep the right hand low down so as to prevent the offside rein from getting over the horse’s back. This rein will be kept in its place by the ring on the surcingle. If by any chance the offside rein does get over the horse’s back, or if he gets into a tangle of any kind, all he has to do is to loose this rein at once, and cling for dear life to the nearside rein, so that he will pull the horse’s head towards him, and save the situation. If the driver can keep his own head as well as the horse’s head, this practice ought never to fail. As soon as the young horse is accustomed to being handled in this manner, he should be invited to jump small places and blind ditches to make him clever with his feet. As soon as he is over the fence the driver should loose the offside rein from his hand, and the horse will halt or come round in obedience to the pressure from the nearside rein. Horses learn this habit very quickly, and soon begin to stop of their own accord when they are over the other side. It is well to have two assistants on foot standing on the taking-off side of the obstacle on each side of the selected place, in order to supply a little moral suasion by the voice. The whip should not be used except as a last resort; the mere presence of the men is generally enough; most young horses have sense enough to give in to the weight of numbers. The first few fences that our young horse is asked to jump should no doubt be small and perhaps thin, simply for the purpose of giving him confidence. But it is probably a mistake to practise too long over places that can be tampered with. The thing becomes too easy, and the pupil may very well become slovenly and careless. He should be made to learn that jumping—like all other accomplishments—requires a certain effort, and that it is safer to negotiate obstacles with something to spare. For this reason the natural country is a better field for practice than an artificial school, however cunningly it be contrived. An artificial school is of some value in teaching a young horse to balance and stand on his hocks. But in a very few days he acquires the trick of skimming over the obstacles with hardly an inch to spare, and does not learn to take care of himself as he would in the blind ditches and thorns of the natural country. Timber jumping may perhaps be learnt in a school, and indeed it is wise, even when an aged horse has been imported into the Midlands, to longe him once or twice over a bar before taking him out hunting. But after all is said and done, there is nothing like a run with Hounds to make a young horse. One good gallop will do it with a generous animal, and we will try to say something about this in the next chapter.
