SLOW WORK. 43 



they cannot make a man specifically less than his 

 actual standing weight, they are so advantageous to 

 the horse, that whether we diminish that weight, or 

 so husband his powers as to give him more ability to 

 carry it, it amounts to the same thing. Without 

 consideration, a man may say, If our forefathers did 

 not possess these advantages, how did they get along ? 

 Why very well : so did the Old Blue from the Saracen's 

 Head, Snow Hill, that, when I was a good boy five- 

 and-thirty years ago, took me to Bath in seventeen 

 hours and a half. I have gone better though by The 

 Age to Brighton since, and we go better in the field : 

 at all events we go faster. The old short wheelers' 

 reins did very well for six miles an hour ; but we 

 should get in a mess if we used them going sometimes 

 fourteen over a hilly country. Racing pace calls for 

 racing practices ; and horses to go with hounds now 

 must all but race with perhaps 14st. on them. Though 

 I cannot in general advocate steeple-racing as it is 

 carried on, I am quite free to allow it has at least one 

 great item in its favour : it is the very best possible 

 school for teaching a man to ride across country. I 

 do not consider that it is in any way necessary for a 

 man to be a steeple-chase rider to enable him to ride 

 to hounds, if, as formerly, men hunted from a love 

 of hunting. The time was when men rode in order 

 to see hounds : they now see hounds in order to ride ; 

 and that being the case, racing knowledge and racing 

 habits become indispensable. If greater exertions 

 are now required from men and horses, means must 

 be adopted to meet the exigencies of the case : and 

 certainly since hunting was first followed, there 

 never was a period that could produce such a number 

 of fine riders in the field as the present. But I am 



