OF FARRIERY. 



899 



anxious'sospense now takes place. During 

 this period, perhaps, some steady Horses tal<e 

 a short canter ; others of a different and 

 warmer nature are obliged to be led in hand. 

 The riders appear full of thought, big with a 

 commission perhaps of mighty consequence, 

 Entrusted to their honour and ability, and 

 meditatins: how to execute it in the ablest 

 manner. The pulse of the betters beats high, 

 in proportion to their risk, the event of which 

 may verify the old quotation, " Some to undo, 

 and some to be undone." The mind of the 

 unprincipled Black-leg is agitated and divided 

 between hope and fear, by an anticipation of 

 the joys of possession in case of winning, and 

 the horrors, loss of cast, and the infamy of a 

 levant, in case he should be lurched by fortune, 

 the goddess of his adoration, and his sole 

 dependence. 



Amongst the knowing manoeuvres of the turf, 

 of which the aspirant has not a few to learn, 

 the false start ou2,ht not to be foro-otten. 

 When the Horses are started, a fair and 

 reasonable indulgence is allowed, in case any 

 one from fright, awkwardness, or other acci- 

 dental circumstance, should fail to get off with 

 the rest. In such a case they are called back, 

 and a fresh signal for the start is given ; now 

 a handle has been made of this indulgence, 

 immemorially, but of late years to such excess, 

 that the clerks of the course have found a 

 strong necessity to check it. When there have 

 been young or hot and impatient Horses to 

 start, the jockies mounted on steady Horses, 

 which they could manage in any way, would 

 go off at the signal, and immediately pulling 

 up, call out a false start ! by which tour they 

 got them all called back again ; and this has 

 been practised to the third, even the fourth 

 time. By such means, the hot Horses were 



so flurried and harassed, that at las>t it was 

 difficult to make them start at all ; and the 

 experienced who know the delicacy of tem- 

 perament and constitution in the running 

 Horse, and on what seemingly trifling circum- 

 stances both his speed and stoutness depend 

 are well convinced of the ill effect of such 

 treatment on those which are delicate and 

 irritable. 



Now and then, excessive caution in the 

 jockey has overshot its mark, and completely 

 changed its nature. When several capital 

 Horses have started, together with others 

 without the least right or prospect of winning, 

 the former, each afraid of his equal compe- 

 titor, or bound by orders, have deferred their 

 run, and waited such a length of time, that 

 they have suffered the inferior Horses to gain 

 so much ground, that the capital ones, with 

 all their superiority of speed or goodness, were 

 unable to overtake them ; and so the race has 

 been won by the slowest and the worst ! The 

 race is thus not always to the swift. The late 

 Lord Grosvenor once won a heavy stake, in 

 this way, at Newmarket ; which, however, 

 might be much reduced by the bets he had 

 in all probability made against his own 

 Horse. 



PORTRAITS OF RACERS. 



A strange neglect was formerly shown at 

 Newmarket, the head-quarters of the British 

 Tnrf, in respect to the portraitures of the 

 celebrated race-horses of former days, the 

 originals and progenitors of our present race. 

 Obscure accounts and traditions of these may 

 be traced, perhaps, to the early part of the 

 reign of Charles I. when, or somewhat earlier, 

 Newmarket first became the theatre of this 

 national sport. These precious relics were 



