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.  All such horses come originally of British stock, for it is in Great Britain that the breed has been developed, although it traces back, through a number of centuries, to a foundation of Arabian blood.  I am informed that climatic and other conditions in a certain part of Ireland are for some reason peculiarly favorable to the development of hunters and that these conditions are duplicated in the Piedmont section of Virginia, and nowhere else in the whole world.  Only the stanchest, bravest, fastest type of horse is suited for hunting in Virginia, and for this reason the more experienced riders to hounds prefer the thoroughbred, though half-bred and three-quarter-bred horses are also used to some extent, the thoroughbred often being too mettlesome, when he becomes excited, for any but the best riders.  The finest qualities of a horse are brought out in hunting in the Piedmont section, for the pace here is very fast—­much faster than in England, though it should be added that in the English hunting country there are more hedges than over here, and that the jumps are, upon the whole, stiffer.

The speed of the Piedmont Hunt and other hunts in Virginia is doubtless due to the use of southern hounds, these being American hounds, smaller and faster than English hounds, from which, however, they were originally bred.  The desirable qualities in a pack of hounds are uniformity of type, substance, speed, and color.  These points have to do not only with the style of a pack, but also with its hunting quality.  Thus in the Piedmont pack they breed for a red hound with white markings, so that the pack may have an individual appearance, but in all packs a great effort is made to secure even speed, for a slow hound lags, while a fast one becomes an individual hunter.  The unusual hound is therefore likely to be “drafted” from the pack.