THE SHOW HORSE 8i 



of gaining distinction is small unless he has a 

 very good horse indeed. 



Showing, as a sport, is very good fun ; and 

 some people make a very profitable business of it, 

 at any rate indirectly. But if a man would 

 enjoy the sport of showing he must learn to be a 

 good loser. It is almost certain that he will be 

 beaten when he should have won ; it is equally 

 certain that he will win sometimes when he ought 

 to have been beaten. '' What will you say about 

 that ? '' said the late Mr. Andrew J. Brown to 

 me, as we rode out of the ring after I had won in 

 a class in which, if I had been judging I should 

 have placed the horse I was riding third. '' That 

 it was his good manners that won for him " was 

 my reply. His manners were excellent and in 

 one pace he was perfect. The judges got him 

 into this pace and liked him so well at three- 

 quarter speed that they tried him at nothing 

 else. 



The fact is that there is a considerable amount 

 of luck about showing. The judges may be good 

 men, but they have a very limited time in which 

 to make up their minds on a very complicated 

 matter, and they have to judge the horse as they 

 see him, not as the public sees him. However 

 brilliant may be the show that the chestnut 

 makes it is all to no purpose if the judges are 

 carefully looking at the grey all the time ; a fact 

 which grooms and their masters somehow en- 

 tirely overlook. And horses are very perverse 

 at times, and occasionally will make two or three 

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