50 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. 



we stood there, remarking how an able rising jockey, 

 of whom we expected better things, seemed "all 

 abroad," while the future winner was pulling his 

 horse together, and waiting on him, as coolly as if 

 he was in his own arm-chair. Leading jockeys have 

 generally fancied one horse above all the rest of 

 their mounts. Buckle swore by Violante, Chifney 

 by Selim, Scott by Velocipede, and Butler by 

 " The West." Robinson goes for Bay Middletoii, 

 and John Day, sen., for Crucifix. Nat, we have 

 heard, inclines to Glencoe ; " Job" is faithful to 

 Teddington ; and " Sim," despite of Cossack and 

 Surplice, cannot be weaned from the memory of the 

 elegant chesnut Battledore, whom he rode for his 

 good old master Sir Thomas Stanley in the only race 

 he ever ran. 



No profession is more trying in every way ; as, in- 

 dependent of the strong "walks" and appetite pri- 

 vations which they have to undergo, it takes years 

 to retrieve even a false suspicion, much less a false 

 step. There are not only a number of morbid 

 minds among racing men, who will undertake to 

 prove that hardly a race yet was run on the square, 

 but every spectator, gentle or simple, who loses his 

 money, feels himself quite competent to criticise the 

 style in which the pet of his fancy has been ridden, 

 and to pronounce the most sweeping judgments ac- 

 cordingly. Jockeys can survive this sort of criticism; 

 but owners and trainers are often unduly fretful, 

 and too anxious to find an excuse at some person's 

 expense, rather than their own or their horses', for 

 being beaten. They forget that trial-horses, however 

 great their form may once have been, cannot keep 

 it for ever ; the jockey is at once made the scape- 

 goat; and although the owner may continue to 

 give him a retainer, he seems to think nothing of 

 taking him off entirely, or superseding him sud- 

 denly in all the good mounts in the middle of a 

 season, with as little justice, and as little regard 



