42 The Post and the Paddock. 



among the leaders for the Derby, about two distances 

 from home. If they have an ounce of flurry in their 

 composition, that moment will bring it out ; and we 

 could not help, in the course of the last few years, as 

 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 armchair. 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 

 went for Bay Middleton, and John Day, sen., for 

 Crucifix. Nat, we have heard, inclined to Glencoe ; 

 " Job" was faithful to Teddington ; and " Sim," despite 

 of Cossack and Surplice, cannot be weaned from the 

 memory of the elegant chestnut 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 priva- 

 tions 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 accordingly. 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 scapegoat ; and although the owner 



