The yearlings were being sold firsttall, long-legged, skittish, wild-eyed creatures, who had run free upon the upland pastures, with ragged hair and towsie manes, but hardy, inured to all weathers, and with the makings of splendid hunters and steeplechasers when corn and time had brought them to maturity.

Ordinarily, overreach occurs when the animal is at a gallop, and is thus met with in its severest form in hunters and steeplechasers.