THE TURF 67 



hold for sitting steady was to keep the 

 knee and the calf of the leg strongly pressed 

 against the side of the animal that en- 

 deavours to unhorse you ; and, as little 

 accidents afford frequent occasions to re- 

 mind boys of this rule, it becomes so rooted 

 in the memory of the intelligent, that their 

 anger is comparatively trifling.' 



Of the comparative good and bad temper 

 of race-horses, the dramatist thus speaks : 



1 The majority of them are playful, but 

 their gambols are dangerous to the timid or 

 unskilful. They are all easily and suddenly 

 alarmed when anything they do not under- 

 stand forcibly catches their attention ; and 

 they are then to be feared by the bad 

 horseman, and carefully guarded against 

 by the good. Very serious accidents have 

 happened to the best. But, besides their 

 general disposition to playfulness, there is 

 a great propensity in them to become what 

 the jockeys call vicious. Tom, the brother 

 of Jack Clarke, after sweating a grey horse 

 that belonged to Lord March, with whom 

 he lived, while he was either scraping or 

 dressing him, was seized by the animal by 

 the shoulder, lifted from the ground and 



