90 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. 



undercurrent of jealousy which was always steadily 

 flowing against the Prince was not likely to spare his 

 jockey. Hence it was that the very year after he left 

 Mr. Panton's service, and engaged himself to the 

 Prince at a 200 salary, the Yorkshiremen made their 

 venomous attacks upon him for his riding of Traveller 

 and Creeper. This was followed up by the Escape af- 

 fair in the autumn of that year (1791) ; but Chifney, 

 conscious of his innocence, bore these attacks and 

 their consequences with the utmost calmness ; and 

 when some eight years after, the far seeing tykes 

 again blamed his riding of Mr. Cookson's Sir Harry, 

 he requested that gentleman to put up Singleton on 

 the following day, and had the quiet satisfaction of 

 seeing the horse beaten off again in a very much worse 

 field. The malice of his persecutors tempted him in 

 after-years to speak with his pen, through the pages 

 of fc Genius Genuine," the very same remarks as to 

 condition, &c., which he had privately tendered to his 

 employers after each of these races. His great theory 

 of slack-rein riding, for which the Duke of Bedford 

 had been so unmercifully teased at the Club parties, 

 that he very nearly requested him to send in his 

 jacket, was copiously treated of in this work, and the 

 few following sentences may be said to comprise the 

 kernel of his sentiments on the subject : 



'' The first fine part in riding a race is to command your horse to 

 run light in his mouth; it is done with manner; it keeps him the 

 better together, his legs are the more under him, his sinews less ex- 

 tended, less exertion, his wind less locked; the horse running thus to 

 order, feeling light for his rider's wants ; his parts are more at ease 

 and ready, and can run considerably faster when called upon than 

 when he has been running in the fretting, sprawling attitudes, with 

 part of his rider's weight in his mouth. 



"And as the horse comes to his last extremity, finishing his race, 

 he is the better forced and kept straight with manner, and fine touch- 

 ing to his mouth. In this situation the horse's mouth should be eased 

 of the weight of his rein ; if not, it stops him little or much. If a 

 horse is a slug, he should be forced with a manner up to this order of 

 running, and particularly so if he has to make play, or he will run 

 the slower, and jade the sooner for the want of it. 



'* The phrase at Newmarket is, that you should pull your horse to 



