THE SELECTION OF THE CHASER. 295 



Horses for the most part jump in widely different fashion when 

 they carry a scarlet- coat and when a silken jacket is worn by 

 the rider. A chaser, or rather the rough material out of which 

 a chaser can be made, is much more likely, as things are at 

 present managed, to be found at Newmarket than following 

 after a pack of hounds ; if only — and this is a most important 

 point — the animal's temper has not been seriously affected by 

 his career on the flat. 



Here is the danger ; for if a horse does not take kindly to 

 the business, he is likely to be a source of continual disappoint- 

 ment, and at the best it must occupy a very much longer time 

 to make him anything like trustworthy than if he entered kindly 

 and willingly into the sport, as many horses do. It is often 

 possible to coax or drive him along for a few furlongs ; the 

 position is greatly changed when he is called upon to run in 

 a steeple-chase, where so much more is, as it were, left to his 

 discretion, and so many more temptations to cease persever- 

 ance are likely to arise from the incidents and mishaps of the 

 struggle. 



To obtain the perfect chaser it cannot be said that we go 

 the best way to work ; and the frequent successes of Irish 

 horses may be accepted as a proof of this. But a very small 

 proportion of the capital which is invested on the Turf here is 

 invested in Ireland ; the Irish get more for their money be- 

 cause they lay it out more judiciously. There the question of 

 breeding the chaser is studied, with the results which we see ; 

 and, moreover, chasers are not knocked about on the flat as 

 they are in England. In all that appertains to teaching the 

 chaser his business, English trainers such as Tom Cannon, his 

 brother Joseph, Richard Marsh, James Jewitt, Mr. Arthur Yates, 

 and others, have no superiors in the world. The Irish on the 

 whole, however, do better with inferior material to work on, 

 because they bring up a horse in the way he should go, begin- 

 ning earlier the task of teaching him his business. That certain 

 recruits from the flat have distinguished themselves over a 

 country does not affect the argument that, as a rule, flat-racing 



