1^8 THE TURF 



a flight, the horse would begin to measure his distance 

 so that he could take it in his stride without having 

 to " put in a little one " when quite near. Anything 

 like dwelling at a hurdle is fatal to success, but the 

 worst of this business is that very often in a big field 

 horses close in as they approach the jump, and an 

 animal that is a little way behind cannot see what he 

 has to do. It is a dangerous game for this reason, 

 and a fall over a swinging hurdle is likely to be a very 

 ugly one. At big fences a horse must be slightly 

 steadied, but not at all in the fashion in which a man 

 out hunting pulls his horse together before it jumps. 

 Naturally the great object of steeplechasing is to lose 

 no time, and therefore a horse must get away from 

 his fences without dwelling — that indeed is one of 

 the o-reat secrets of success. Some riders adopt the 

 practice of going at the last two jumps "as if they 

 were not there," but awkward results often follow from 

 chancincr anything. The margin between success and 

 failure is so small that pulling a horse together before 

 the last jump may lose a length that can never be 

 reo-ained : on the other hand, it is very certain that 

 by chancing the last fence many horses fall, and some- 

 thincr that has seemed to be hopelessly beaten and is 

 toilino- on lengths behind may thus gain a victory 

 which had seemed absolutely hopeless. At the same 

 time, if a beaten horse is pulled out of his stride, he is 

 apt to fall, and such a fall is usually a bad one. 



The size of obstacles when a horse is being schooled 



