112 ADAPTING THE JOCKEY TO THE HORSE. 



saw a boy put on a great lumbering three-year-old, 

 with a heavy saddle and saddle-cloths to make up 

 weight. I had the curiosity to ask why so young a 

 lad was employed? and was told, u the boy had always 

 ridden him in his work." I concluded (though the 

 colt looked very unlike anything of the sort) that he 

 was one of those nervous timid ones that will some- 

 times run kinder under the boy they are used to than 

 any one else ; but on seeing him take his preparatory 

 canter, I saw the lad trying to twist him along, the 

 great brute taking about a stride an hour. It struck 

 me that if this boy had ridden the colt in his work, it 

 would have been much better if he had never ridden 

 him at all. The result of the race was what I should 

 have thought any one would have anticipated : the 

 boy did all HE could ; the brute was good enough to 

 have won easy, and came up with his horses ; but 

 when the boy set to with him merely to get up half a 

 length, he might as well have done so with a dead 

 horse, for he answered him about as much. He put 

 me in mind of a favourite pony of my wife's, when 

 very angry with him for choosing to walk up hills 

 with a rise of about half a yard in a hundred, 

 she sometimes hit him hard enough to frighten, 

 but not to kill a fly, he used on such occasions to 

 give a switch with his beautiful white tail, as much 

 as to say, " I know what you mean, but don't 

 choose to attend to it." This brute of a colt did 

 just the same thing, only his tail happened to be 

 a black one. Now, had Sam Darling been put on 

 him, he would have given him a lesson that would 

 have improved him wonderfully for his next race, 

 and have astonished him a little in this ; and had a 

 lad with some of Darling's peculiar ability in riding 



