It's one of those sports that's impossible to comprehend until you try it. Then you understand why everyone from Alexander the Great to George Washington to Winston Churchill loved it. I think in England, though, it involves shades of class envy that we don't have to deal with (yet) here in the states. We get occasional animal-rights kooks, though.
". . . the gentleman falls in love with his dogs and horses and out of love with everything else.”
Lady Montagu
"... the image of war without its guilt, and only five-and-twenty per cent of its danger.”
Surtees
" To horse and away To the heart of the fray! Fling care to the Devil for one merry day!"
W.H.Ogilvy
My hunter, now retired as a "mobile lawn ornament":