Bibliothèque mondiale du cheval

« After two years of no small labour, I have redeemed the promise I made of writing a companion work to The Post and the Paddock . In the racing portion of it, my way was clear enough; but the hunting was fraught with difficulty. It struck me, however, that there was one mode of treating the subject which I might legitimately pursue without exposing myself to the charge of plagiarism, or provoking a fatal comparison with those regular hunting writers, who have learnt their experience in the saddle. In many of the capital books which have appeared on the subject, horses and their riders seem to have monopolized the lion’s share of notice, to the exclusion of the hounds. I felt sure that there must be not a few stories of the exploits and breeding of the latter, which had been told often enough over hunting firesides, but had never risen to type estate; and hence I determined to sally forth, and make a pilgrimage with my note-book among the principal English kennels. As regards both racing and hunting, I cannot speak with sufficient gratitude of the kind assistance I have received from every one (and from none more than the late Will Goodall) to whom I applied, although in nine instances out of ten we had never met or corresponded before.
For the first two chapters I can claim no credit. They are the verbatim recitals of the hunting deeds of bygone days in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, as they appeared to two very different minds; and as Dick has had such experience as "pilot" across Leicestershire, I deemed it prudent to send him off at score in the first chapter to make a pace, while, in the words of the equally renowned Billy Pierse, "I toddled behind". After spending so many days with Dick in the prosecution of our historic studies, it would have been a sad lack of politeness not to give a print of him. The attitude and expression is exactly that which he assumed when I read him the proof- sheets of his lecture; and it was, I regret to say, on one of those errands that he incautiously walked, with Preface. v his right hand in his breeches-pocket, and falling against the kerbstone on a frosty night, laid himself up for nearly the whole winter. Tom Sebright and Tom Ranee, as the senior foxhound huntsman and whip of England, also claimed a portrait ; and that of poor Will Goodall is taken from a photograph, which his widow kindly allowed me to copy. Mr. Osbal- deston’s well-known figure will be recognised in the sketch from the pencil of Mr. Ambrose Isted; and the Turf has its representative in Jem Robinson and Dick Stockdale, the latter one of the most devoted lovers of horses, and best-known characters in the whole of the East Riding. His brother Yorkshiremen would indeed be amazed, if they went to an agricultural or a foal show, and did not see Dick leading something into the ring, and making it stand well up.
Unlike The Post and the Paddock, which was mainly a reprint from the Sporting Review to begin with, and gradually swelled into a "Hunting Edition," the present work is, with the exception of eight or nine pages (which I have adopted on the principle of " the man who eloped with his own wife"), entirely original. If it is ever fated to reach a second issue, it will receive not one line in addition; and it goes to the starting-post with the assurance that it has had a long and steady preparation, and that, if it cannot at least run to the form of its elder brother, its trainer has no excuse to make for it. » Présentation de l’éditeur (1859)

« London, 1858. » Huth (1887)