334 STEEPLE-CHASING. 



If the rider have doubts about the relative capacity of his 

 own horse and others, he will learn by experience how to take 

 a feeler at an animal that appears to threaten danger when half 

 or three-quarters of the race is run, a mile from home perhaps 

 in a four-mile race. Even though neither be going at full 

 speed, the practised horseman will be able to ascertain almost 

 unfailingly what he desires to know, and the knowledge is a 

 valuable guide to him for the remainder of the contest. He 

 will act according to what he has learnt about his horse's dis- 

 position. Should he perceive that the other horse is tiring 

 while his own is going easily, he can take matters quietly with 

 the pleasant assurance that the race is his. Should the other 

 be going well within himself, and. his own, a known stayer, be 

 also fairly fresh, it may be necessary to increase the pace ; and 

 again, should he discover that the other is a little the fresher 

 of the two, he maybe wise to take a pull at his horse and begin 

 to nurse it for the run home. 



That a man must always ride straight at his fences is almost 

 too obvious to need remark. In jumping timber in the hunting 

 field it is often wise to go sideways, for reasons which need 

 not be discussed in this chapter, as being foreign to its pur- 

 pose ; over a course the straightest way is the shortest, and 

 to jump sideways is to run the risk of knocking something 

 else down or of being knocked down oneself.^ When chasers 

 jump thus, the cause may be traced to insufficient schoohng 

 or bad handling. Many riders confessedly go at the last two 

 fences in a steeple-chase simply as if they were not there — and 

 indeed there is very little time to lose when this point is reached. 

 Nevertheless, the maxim ' Chance nothing ' must not be entirely 

 disregarded. Whatever wisdom may suggest and theory main- 

 tain, it is almost inevitable in practice that the rider, notwith- 

 standing that he is generally on a tired horse, will go at these two 

 fences more rapidly, and with less care, than he should. Luck 



^ It is curious to note in a steeplechase that, however straight a horse is 

 put at a fence, he never jumps quite straight — always lands a little to left or 

 right, — Ed. 



