Condition is a matter of seasons, not of months; a horse in hard
condition can take without injury a fall that would disable a soft
one for weeks.
In old times many of Virginia's country gentlemen kept their own packs,
but though some followed the hounds according to the English tradition,
there developed a less sportsmanlike style of hunting called
"hilltopping," under which the hunting men rode to an elevated point and
watched the hounds run the fox, without themselves attempting to follow
across country and be in at the kill. As a result, the fox was, if
caught, torn to pieces by the hounds, and the brush and head were
infrequently saved.
Under the traditions of English fox-hunting--traditions the strictness
of which can hardly be exaggerated--"hilltopping" is a more than
doubtful sport, and, since organized fox-hunting in the United States is
taken entirely from the English idea, the practice is tabooed on
first-class hunting regions.
The origin of hilltopping is, however, easily understood. The old
fox-hunters simply did not, as a rule, have horses adequate to negotiate
the country, hunters not having been developed to any great extent in
America in early times.
The perfect type of hunter is of thoroughbred stock. By the term
"thoroughbred" horsemen do not mean highly bred horses of any kind, as
is sometimes supposed, but only running horses.
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