Hobbyhorse

“ If the bull-finch be too strong, the hunter may stick in it, or forcing through it into the ditch on the other side, may leave his owner hanging like a bird's-nest in its branches. An ox-fence—composed of two ditches, a bank, a pair of hedges, and a stiff, low, oak rail—may altogether prove too broad to be cleared. Timber also may be too high to be topped; yet, in all these cases, if the rider be but willing, the noble horse is always ready, ay, eager, to do his very best, and many a broken back and prostrate carcase, divested of its saddle and bridle, has been the melancholy result ”

“ Horsemen, buggies, buck-boards, wagons, as far either way as one can see—and prairie schooners, too, lumbering and pitching in the rear. Away over the rolling prairie they speed, disappearing finally on the distant hills like a lot of scared jackrabbits, now well strung out. Suddenly a trained race-horse goes down—he has learned his first lesson in badger holes. A bullet from his master's gun ends the animal's suffering, and with him goes his master's last chance. ”

“ The Hobby is a less common bird in England than in France, where it is said to be a constant companion of the sportsman, and to be endowed with enough discrimination to keep out of shot. Not satisfied with appropriating to its own use wounded birds, it pursues and captures those which have been fired at unsuccessfully, and not unfrequently even those which have been put up but have not come within shot. It is frequently taken, too, in the nets spread for Larks, or inveigled into the snare of the fowler who pursues his craft with limed twigs and the imitated cry of the Owl. ”

“ Horse-raising is here a science, and as we drive from one estate to another, and note the careful tillage, the trim fences, the neat stables, the pretty paddocks, and the houses of the favorites, we see how everything is intended to contribute to the perfection in refinement of fibre, speed, and endurance of the noble animal. Even persons who are usually indifferent to horses cannot but admire these beautiful high-bred creatures, either the famous ones displayed at the stables, or the colts and fillies, which have yet their reputations to make, at play in the blue-grass pastures ”

“ It must not be understood that excellent saddle-horses may be found only on the large stock farms, where the selection is greater and the chances are greater. There is a good horse for nearly every holding in the Blue Grass region, and the man who breeds his only mare may through good luck, aiding good judgment, rear a Montgomery Chief or a Bourbon King, the last-named, I may say, being a young horse selected by many of the best judges to bear away the bell in future contests. ”

“ See that your gun is in complete order, for, hark to the sound of the bugle and horn, and the mingled clamour of a pack of harriers! Your friends are waiting you, under the shade of the wood, and we must together go driving the light-footed deer. The distance over which one has to travel is seldom felt, when pleasure is anticipated as the result: so, galloping we go pell-mell through the woods, to some well known place, where many a fine buck has drooped its antlers under the ball of the hunter's rifle. The servants, who are called the drivers, have already begun their search. ”

“ My object is to set up guide boards at the dangerous places, that other travelers may avoid the pitfalls and the perils into which we fell. And to every amateur hunter we beg to offer this advice: Never tie dead game upon a strange horse unless you owe the rider a grudge.
"Young men," said the Doctor, from his saddle, "you have seen a beautiful illustration in the theory of development. The hound and the antelope may have been originally an oyster and a worm. From their first slow motion, when one only opened its jaws to seize the other, they have progressed until the speed of to-day results. ”

“ The pack-horse, a slow-moving beast, has a keeper who pulls him along by a cord, his extended head and reluctant gait making that seem the only motive power. Horse and leader wear straw shoes, and new pairs are strung around the high saddle for reshoeing the beast every few miles. Iron horseshoes are confined to the capital and the large ports, and the village blacksmith is unknown. Pack-horses wear a thick straw pad and a high saddle fashioned like a saw-horse, on which the rider sits aloft, so well forward that his feet hang over the creature’s neck. ”

“ When they have taken one, they confine it with ropes, saddle it, put a halter on it, and having again loosened it they mount and ride it furiously until it is completely exhausted. And they continue to do this until the animal becomes tame and tractable. These wild horses are of almost every color; some of them have a very fine appearance, but they are much smaller than well-bred horses, and their habits are, in some respects, entirely different from those of the domestic horses. From the coral we proceeded across the country to Monte Rey. ”

“ Many experiences of the same sort help him to see the huddled, inexpert figures of saddle-sore dudes, some clad piecemeal, some in the extreme of appropriateness. He knows the exasperating slowness of horses drained of the last ounce of endurance. He, too, has tried to urge on a miscellaneous collection of tired horses, burros and dudes, all wandering in different directions, at differing gaits. He knows the self-respecting guide’s chagrin at losing the pride of his life,—his top-horse, and he knows the condition of Indian cayuses at the end of winter. ”

“ Again, in the hunting-field, a noble, high-couraged horse, a rusher at any description of fence, the very sight of which seems to inflame his ardour, in most gallant style charges a brook, which when he is in the air he sees is too broad to be cleared. On his chest striking against the bank, and while his rider, delighted at feeling that he is not a bit hurt, is luxuriously rolling over and over on the green grass like a rabbit that at full speed has been shot dead, this gallant steed makes two, three, or four desperate efforts to get to him ”

“ There were, as it happened, only three pinto horses in the entire saddle stock, and these three were the last left of the entire bunch. Now a little boy or girl, and many an older person, thinks that a spotted horse is the real thing, but practical cattle men know that this freak of color in range-bred horses is the result of in-and-in breeding, with consequent physical and mental deterioration. It was my good fortune that morning to get a good mount of horses,—three sorrels, two grays, two coyotes, a black, a brown, and a grulla. ”

“ The common use of the word is for a favourite pursuit or occupation, with the idea either of excessive devotion or of absence of ulterior motive or of profit, &c., outside the occupation itself. This use is probably not derived from the easy ambling gait of the Irish “hobby,” but from the “hobby-horse,” the mock horse of the old morris-dances, made of a painted wooden horse’s head and tail, with a framework casing for an actor’s body, his legs being covered by a cloth made to represent the “housings” of the medieval tilting-horse. A hobby or hobby-horse is thus a toy, a diversion. ”

“ HOBBY HORSE. A man's favourite amusement, or study, is called his hobby horse. It also means a particular kind of small Irish horse: and also a wooden one, such as is given to children.
HOBBY HORSICAL. A man who is a great keeper or rider of hobby horses; one that is apt to be strongly attached to his systems of amusement.
HOBNAIL. A country clodhopper: from the shoes of country
farmers and ploughmen being commonly stuck full of
hob-nails, and even often clouted, or tipped with iron.
The Devil ran over his face with hobnails in his shoes ”

“ A lot of young horses which have never been in a yard twice in their lives are driven up into an enclosure; a horse is selected, separated from the herd, and driven into a small yard by himself. He is lassoed or secured in some way, and a saddle and bridle are put on him. "While the animal is held by his assistants, the horse-breaker mounts, and then sticks his spurs into the poor beast and sets him to bucking till he is tired out and gives in; then the horse is left for a few hours with the saddle on. ”

“ The stag-hunting country is a matter of six and thirty miles, which often the tireless hounds will cross from end to end after their quarry.
Surely the most important, interesting, and difficult part of the chase of the wild deer is the "harbouring," as it is called. How fine an exercise of woodcraft! The harbourer's best guide is the slot, or footprint of the deer, which, to the experienced eye, tells whether the deer afoot be stag or hind, and whether of proper age to hunt and kill. Four or five hours are often spent by the most skilful harbourer in tracking a warrantable stag to his lair. ”

“ Running is a faster pace and a mile can be made in less time, but Americans like trotting better.
Shall I say something about the use of the horse in hunting? This has long been a common sport in England and Ireland, much more so than in this country. The owners of large estates in the British islands often keep large packs of hounds, trained to chase the fox or the deer, and known as fox-hounds and deer-hounds. Their stables are also filled with horses, trained to run at full speed over rough country and jump high fences and wide ditches. ”

“ Occasionally you would be lucky enough to find a maverick, a calf or a yearling so old as to have left its mother and be still running loose without a brand and therefore without an owner. It was particular satisfaction to get one's rope, and therefore one's brand, on to such a rover, though it might really not be the progeny of your own cattle at all. It was no easy job either for one man alone to catch and brand such a big and wild creature, especially if among the brush and cedar trees. ”

“ Winship.
“Yes; but not so many as you would suppose, for the horsemanship, in its particular way, is something wonderful. When an ugly steer is lassoed and he feels the reata or lariat round his neck, he sometimes turns and ‘makes’ for the horse, and unless the vaquero is particularly skilful he will be gored and his horse too; but he gives a dexterous turn to the lariat, the animal steps over it, gets tangled and thrown. Frequently an animal breaks a horn or a leg. Sometimes one fall is not enough; the steer jumps up and pursues the horse. ”

“ No one may buy fresh fish other than sturgeon, porpoise, or seal from an alien to put to sale in the nation.
Every person with an enclosed park where there are deer, shall keep two tall and strong mares in such park and shall not allow them to be mounted by any short horse, because the breeding of good, swift, and strong horses has diminished.
A man may have only as many trotting horses for the saddle as are appropriate to his degree.
No one may maintain for a living a house for unlawful games such as bowling, tennis, dice, or cards. ”

“ Another wants heavy draught-horses, with legs like great pillars under them, and thick, muscular necks—horses weighing nearly a ton apiece and able to draw the heaviest trucks. What a contrast between these slow but powerful animals and the graceful, prancing racer with legs like pipe-stems—fleet and agile, but not strong enough to draw a heavy load!
All these different breeds of horses have been developed since man succeeded in capturing the wild horse and making it help him. ”

“ We feed them principally on hay and barley, increasing the ration at the breeding season so as to infuse strength into their get by means of their food. The breeding season is the same as for horses, and, like them again, we have the jack handled by a studgroom.
"When a mare has dropped a mule colt or filly we bring it up with care. Those which are born in marshy and swampy country have soft hoofs, but if they are driven up into the mountain in summer, as we do at Reate, their hoofs become hardened. ”

“ No one shall be eligible for regular membership who shall not have killed with the rifle, in fair chase, by still-hunting or otherwise, at least one individual of each of three of the various kinds of American large game.
Article IV.
Under the head of American large game are included the following animals: Black or brown bear, grizzly bear, polar bear, buffalo (bison) , mountain sheep, woodland caribou, barren-ground caribou, cougar, musk-ox, white goat, elk (wapiti) , prong-horn antelope, moose, Virginia deer, mule deer, and Columbian black-tail deer. ”

“ Greathorse in the centre of the Ring, with an enormous whip in his hand, cutting the air with slashing strokes, to excite the poor creatures, and when one of them, in spite of the efforts of the rider and the cracking of the lash, hesitated to jump, he looked as if he would have been glad to proceed from threats to blows! ”

“ I had several years before had some two years' experience in constant horseback travel in labors similar to those I was now entering upon, as superintendent of the colporteur operations of the American Tract Society in Virginia. There I had floundered in the marshes and swamps of "Tidewater," and been lost amid the rugged rocks and dense forests high up the sides and in the loftiest summits of the Blue Ridge and other mountains. I knew that I [Pg 13] must have a horse. This was indispensable. More than that, I wanted a good horse, a horse broken expressly for the saddle. ”

“ Personally, were I to criticise hare-hunting, I should say that too much of the chief diversion is the monopoly of the huntsmen—certainly the days I have thoroughly enjoyed have been those when I carried the horn myself. Again, with fast harriers or 20-inch fox-hounds, you must ride, but then you would do better with fox-hounds. If you went on foot, nature must have been lavish in her gifts if you have the physical power, courage, and endurance to enable you to keep near enough to see the beautiful detail of harrier work ”