144 RIDING 



hands and no less of their value ; for by struggling to have 

 his own way the horse takes a great deal out of himself, 

 and the result is felt when the final struggle comes at the end 

 of a race and the jockeys sit down to finish. Occasionally the 

 perfect horseman will confess that his mount ' lays hold a bit,' 

 though to the observer this, is scarcely apparent, and it almost 

 seems indeed as if the animal might be controlled with a silken 

 thread. 



' Head ' is a more complex subject, as will be understood 

 when it is remembered that there are varying circumstances in 

 almost every race that is run, and head means not only capacity 

 to note these circumstances, but without a moment's hesitation 

 to see what is the right thing to do. The jockey who deliberates 

 is lost ; there is no time for deliberation in the course of the 

 struggle. He must know just what his own horse is doing and 

 what all the other horses are doing likewise. The faculty is of 

 course rare, but some few riders possess it in a marvellous 

 degree. The author well remembers a race on the five furlong 

 course at Sandown a few years ago, in which Archer showed 

 how extraordinary was his gift in this direction. He was riding 

 a very speedy but uncertain animal called Southampton, in a 

 field of eleven starters. Scarcely more than half the distance 

 had been covered when Archer leaned forward and patted his 

 horse's neck. ' He had won his race,' the famous jockey re- 

 marked afterwards when some casual comment was made on 

 his action, and it struck the writer as a wonderful thing, that 

 while yet so far from the post, in the dash and turmoil of the 

 struggle, one look round should have revealed the whole state 

 of the case and enabled Archer to see that he was safe. At 

 the moment the onlooker would probably have imagined that 

 two or three other horses were * in it,' and would certainly have 

 failed to perceive any assurance that nothing could happen in 

 the remaining quarter of a mile that had still to be covered ; 

 but a glance revealed the condition of affairs to the jockey's keen 

 and experienced eye. 



We will not dwell here on certain technical necessities which 



