Almost as soon as we got to the top of the bank we came out of the woods over a low but awkward rail fence,where one of our number,who was riding a very excitable sorrel colt,got a fall.This left but six,including the whip.There were two or three large fields with low fences;then we came to two high,stiff doubles,the first real jumping of the day,the fences being over four feet six,and so close together that the horses barely had a chance to gather themselves.We got over,however,crossed two or three stump-strewn fields,galloped through an open wood,picked our way across a marshy spot,jumped a small brook and two or three stiff fences,and then came a check.Soon the hounds recovered the line and swung off to the right,back across four or five fields,so as to enable the rest of the hunt,by making an angle,to come up.Then we jumped over a very high board fence into the main road,out of it again,and on over ploughed fields and grass lands,separated by stiff snake fences.The run had been fast and the horses were beginning to tail.By the time we suddenly rattled down into a deep ravine and scrambled up the other side through thick timber there were but four of us left,Lodge and myself being two of the lucky ones.Beyond this ravine we came to one of the worst jumps of the day,a fence out of the wood,which was practicable only at one spot,where a kind of cattle trail led up to a panel.It was within an inch or two of five feet high.However,the horses,thoroughly trained to timber jumping and to rough and hard scrambling in awkward places,and by this time well quieted,took the bars without mistake,each one in turn trotting or cantering up to within a few yards,then making a couple of springs and bucking over with a great twist of the powerful haunches.I may explain that there was not a horse of the four that had not a record of five feet six inches in the ring.We now got into a perfect tangle of ravines,and the fox went to earth;and though we started one or two more in the course of the afternoon,we did not get another really first-class run.
At Geneseo the conditions for the enjoyment of this sport are exceptionally favorable.In the Northeast generally,although there are now a number of well-established hunts,at least nine out of ten runs are after a drag.Most of the hunts are in the neighborhood of great cities,and are mainly kept up by young men who come from them.
A few of these are men of leisure,who can afford to devote their whole time to pleasure;but much the larger number are men in business,who work hard and are obliged to make their sports accommodate themselves to their more serious occupations.Once or twice a week they can get off for an afternoon's ride across country,and they then wish to be absolutely certain of having their run,and of having it at the appointed time;and the only way to insure this is to have a drag-hunt.It is not the lack of foxes that has made the sport so commonly take the form of riding to drag-hounds,but rather the fact that the majority of those who keep it up are hard-working business men who wish to make the most out of every moment of the little time they can spare from their regular occupations.A single ride across country,or an afternoon at polo,will yield more exercise,fun,and excitement than can be got out of a week's decorous and dull riding in the park,and many young fellows have waked up to this fact.
At one time I did a good deal of hunting with the Meadowbrook hounds,in the northern part of Long Island.There were plenty of foxes around us,both red and gray,but partly for the reasons given above,and partly because the covers were so large and so nearly continuous,they were not often hunted,although an effort was always made to have one run every week or so after a wild fox,in order to give a chance for the hounds to be properly worked and to prevent the runs from becoming a mere succession of steeple-chases.The sport was mainly drag-hunting,and was most exciting,as the fences were high and the pace fast.The Long Island country needs a peculiar style of horse,the first requisite being that he shall be a very good and high timber jumper.Quite a number of crack English and Irish hunters have at different times been imported,and some of them have turned out pretty well;but when they first come over they are utterly unable to cross our country,blundering badly at the high timber.Few of them have done as well as the American horses.I have hunted half a dozen times in England,with Pytchely,Essex,and North Warwickshire,and it seems to me probable that English thoroughbreds,in a grass country,and over the peculiar kinds of obstacles they have on the other side of the water,would gallop away from a field of our Long Island horses;for they have speed and bottom,and are great weight carriers.But on our own ground,where the cross-country riding is more like leaping a succession of five or six-bar gates than anything else,they do not as a rule,in spite of the enormous prices paid for them,show themselves equal to the native stock.The highest recorded jump,seven feet two inches,was made by the American horse Filemaker,which I saw ridden in the very front by Mr.H.L.Herbert,in the hunt at Sagamore Hill,about to be described.
