THE WHIP. 119 



or three hundred yards from home, we need not be sur- 

 prised at seemg his horse, after answering the call for ten 

 or a dozen strides, go slower and slower as he nears the 

 judge's box. The horse is then probably condemned as 

 a rogue, while the jockey is praised as a resolute finisher. 

 Some of our best jockeys, now and then, flourish the 

 whip at a finish without hitting the horse, as a " bit of 

 kid," or to make him travel faster than he is doing 

 without punishing him. 



Mr. Edwin Martin tells me that he teaches his boys to 

 carry their sticks in the left hand, so that they may use 

 the whip equally well with both hands. Unless a lad is 

 left-handed, he will have no difficulty with the right. If 

 a horse be inclined to jump about, it will be very 

 awkward for the jockey if he can use the whip — not to 

 punish, but simply to steady him — with only one hand. 

 Martin very justly advises, that, on right-handed courses, 

 the whip, as a rule, should be carried in the left hand. 

 A horse, when he does so, usually hangs or bears off to 

 the left. It is well, he observes, to hold the whip in the 

 outside hand, i.e. in the one farthest away from one's 

 opponents, so that the horse's attention may be 

 balanced, if I may use the term. If both the whip and 

 " the field " are on one side, the horse will not go as 



