On a hunting day he gets one good feed early in the morning and loses one or two feeds.

Moreover, he is doing hard work for hours together, with a weight on his back.
Carry a couple of forage biscuits in your pocket to give him during the day.

Also get off and relieve him of your weight when you can do so.
When he is brought home, put him in his stall or box, slack the girths, take off the bridle and give him his gruel at once.

Throw a rug over his loins and pull his ears for a minute or two.
An old horse needs more clothing than a young one.
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.