RIDERS 189 



with equal ardour upon the business of his profession, 

 in pursuance of which he came to his deeply lamented 

 end. 



RIDERS 



Riding over a country is one of the very few sports 

 at which a few of the best amateurs are not inferior to 

 the best professionals. This, however, is perhaps 

 natural, because these few amateurs who are really in 

 the first flight — the number, of course, is exceedingly 

 small — have as much practice at home and abroad as 

 their professional opponents, and they need not ride 

 unless they are really fond of the game. It is a 

 melancholy thing for a steeplechase jockey if his nerve 

 once goes ; he has to make his living, and it is a most 

 unpleasant business to ride over a country when nerve 

 has gone and one has no other means of livelihood. 

 A gentleman, when this misfortune happens to him — - 

 as in most cases it does sooner or later — can cease to 

 wear silk, or at any rate need not ride over hurdles or 

 fences. One not seldom finds men who have held 

 their own over a country giving it up and appearing 

 only in races on the flat ; but there is not this refuge 

 for the professional when, in vulgar phraseology, he 

 begins to " funk." 



It is a rapid age, and riders of the last generation 

 are very soon forgotten ; comparatively few men now 

 who "go racing" remember Mr. Ede, who earned a 

 well-deserved reputation as Mr. " Edwards." He was 



