244 THE COMPLETE HORSEMAN 



be he will find when he begins to race that his 

 knowledge of what galloping really is has been 

 very limited. He will also find that he will have 

 to handle his horse very differently, that he will 

 have to take stronger hold of him and that the 

 quickest thing he ever rode in was not quite as 

 quick as the business which is now occupying his 

 attention. He will also find that everything will 

 be quite as strange to his horse. 



For these reasons I would advise him to give 

 up hunting the horse he intends to run in the 

 Hunt Steeplechase for a few weeks and in place 

 of hunting to give him some good schooling 

 gallops at home. It would be to his advantage 

 if he could get a little advice from a trainer or 

 some other experienced person, but if that is 

 impossible, he will, if an observant man, with a 

 knowledge of horses, be able to bring his horse 

 to the post pretty fit both as regards condition 

 and cleverness — at any rate as fit as most of his 

 neighbours, and he will be able to do better 

 next time he tries. For it is a sound maxim in 

 everything connected with horses that a man 

 learns more from personal experience than from 

 precept, or for the matter of that, even from 

 example. 



Presumably the horse that is going to be run 

 ' between the flags ' is thoroughbred or nearly 

 thoroughbred. If he is not change your mind 

 and keep him at home. A friend of mine, a fine 

 horseman and a good man to hounds once insisted ^ 

 upon running a horse he owned in a Hunt Steeple- 



