'
"The great men of Elizabeth's reign, appear to have been fully
disposed to profit by the example and injunctions of her father.
Italian masters were invited over; the art of managing horses became
an universal accomplishment, among the nobility and gentry of England;
but most of the professors, both of equitation and farriery, were
foreigners.
"Horses were not yet kept exclusively for the purpose of running
races, but gentlemen matched their hunters or hacknies, and usually
rode the race themselves.
"The most fashionable trial, however, of the speed and goodness of
their horses, was hunting red herrings, or 'the train scent,' as
it was then called, from the body of some animal, which had been
previously drawn across hedge and ditch. Here the scent was certain
and strong, and the hounds would run upon it to the end, with their
utmost speed. The matched horses followed these hounds, and to be
in with them, was generally accounted a very satisfactory proof of
goodness.
"Markham, and that celebrated riding master, Michael Baret, describe,
also, another mode of running matches across the country in those days
denominated the wild goose chase; an imitation of which has continued
in occasional use, to the present time, under the name of steeple
hunting; that is to say, two horsemen, drunk or sober, in or out of
their wits, fix upon a steeple or some other conspicuous distant
object, to which they make a straight cut over hedge, ditch, and gate.
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