PREPARATION NECESSARY. 81 



proper preparation. No horse can hope to cross a 

 country at any pace without wind. Few clever horses 

 fall until deprived of the powers of respiration ; after 

 which, they generally go down a terrible burster, 

 through not having sufficient power to contract their 

 frames and rise at the fences, or else they refuse 

 altogether. 



This should teach any one who attempts to train a 

 steeplechase horse, how hopeless it is for a half-pre- 

 pared horse to stand a chance in a steeplechase, where 

 everything tends to knock the wind out of him. I 

 never yet saw a fat horse run to the end of a steeple- 

 chase that was run at a fair pace. 



BIDING. 



There are several nasty tricks that steeplechase 

 horses usually contract, such as swerving, rushing, 

 pulling, and not rising sufficiently at their fences. 

 These vices cause fully seven-eighths of the accidents 

 both to man and horse that occur in steeplechases, and 

 they are all of them more or less brought on by the 

 rider being unable, through the want of sufficient 

 physical strength, to collect and pull the horse on to his 

 hind legs, and so shorten his stride before reaching 

 the fence. 



Sometimes and more frequently they are brought 

 on by that hateful practice of holding the reins in 

 the left hand, and throwing up the right hand as the 

 horse is rising at the fence, for the purpose of balancing 

 the body ; this necessarily causes the horse to swerve 



