Mr. J. M. Richardson's Writings Collated 



Handicap, at Hexham, on a mare called Lady Day, when my 

 stirrup-leather broke at the very first fence. To make it worse, 

 most of the jumps had biggish drops attached to them. But 

 " All's well that ends well," and I won by a neck, in the end. 

 You cannot be too particular in carefully examining your 

 stirrups' leathers'before getting into the saddle. I say " leathers" 

 advisedly, as being far better than webbings for steeplechases, 

 for the reason that, should your foot slip out of the iron, you 

 can more easily recover it than the other, which twists and turns 

 about so as to make it very difficult to get your foot back into 

 the iron. 



I would also here never advise any one to ride on a smaller 

 saddle than one of six or seven pounds, as the tree of a very 

 light saddle is always liable to break, and really three or four 

 pounds does not make the same amount of difference in a 

 steeplechase that it would on the flat. 



As to falls, I have been so exceptionally lucky that there is 

 really very little to say on the subject, so far as concerns 

 myself, except to remark that the majority of them, in my 

 humble opinion, are caused by riding too close in the tracks of 

 the horse in front of you, the natural consequence being that 

 your mount has no time to see the obstacle before him until he 

 is right on to it. 



As a matter of fact, I hardly ever got a fall when riding the 

 horses in a steeplechase schooled by myself at home, and the 

 only one I really ever received all through my career in the 

 saddle, and that not worth speaking about, was when riding 

 Juryman in the big steeplechase at Baden-Baden I fell and 

 hurt my ankle to some slight extent. Major Tempest, George 

 Ede and myself were the only Englishmen taking part in the 

 race, and were in front of the others, riding side by side, when 

 the horse of the first-named swerving against mine just as we 



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