30 JULY 1977, Page 17

Horse sense

Sir: Richard Ingrams is that very rare phenomenon, someone who looks at (and writes about) television without astigmatic vision. At last (to cite the latest example) one has had the pleasure (23 July) of seeing in print one's own impatience with surely the most inane of all spectacles to which hours and hours of TV time are devoted at this season, namely show jumping.

Worse than the actual boredom is the calm assumption by all commentators that we all, unless in some way essentially unwholesome and abnormal beings, go along with this equine idolatry, whereas the question for many of us is which is the more intolerably ungainly 'and stupid, the fourlegged animals or the crass morons who sit on them, dote on them and subsequently discourse upon them in such ineffable and ludicrous voices.

Most civilised people today agree that the sight of circus elephants rearing up on two legs and lions performing parlour tricks is degrading to the animals' natural dignity and it is onlyex parte opinion that denies the cruelty involved. Exactly the same objections apply, if in lesser degree, to these absurd and almost consecutive equine levitations.

G.Reichardt 13 Hanover Court Wyebank View Tutshill, Chepstow, Gwent