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CHAPTER IT. 



THE SELECTION OF THE CHASER. 



The steeple-chase horse is partly born and partly made ; that 

 is to say, no horse by the unaided light of nature could be 

 expected safely and successfully to make his way over a course 

 so as to win in good company, while speed and stamina are 

 first essentials. In the thoroughbred horse these qualities, 

 together with high courage and that endurance or staying 

 power which so frequently turns the tables at the last moment 

 of a severe race, are found united as they never are in 

 underbred stock. Except, of course, for the heavier forms of 

 drauglit-work, thoroughbred horses are, it may be said, the 

 best for all purposes. 



It has been asserted that few of the class have sufficient 

 substance of bone to withstand the shocks of jumping, and that 

 they cannot carry over a course the weights often put upon 

 them ; but neither assertion is tenable. On modern courses 

 it is an exceedingly rare thing to find in a steeple-chase at any 

 good meeting a starter that is not clean thoroughbred ; and 

 very much rarer still to see such a one win. As regards bone, 

 a thoroughbred seems to have less bone than a horse of mixed 

 breed — in fact, the further he is removed from thoroughbred 

 the more bone he appears to have ; but the appearance is de- 

 ceptive, for the bone of the thoroughbred horse is almost of the 

 consistency of ivory, while the common animal has bone of 

 quite a different and altogether inferior quality. 



An enormous proportion of the steeple-chase horses that are 

 now in training, all but a very few indeed, have served their 

 apprenticeship, frequently of several years' duration, to racing 



