

THE RIDER. 209 



system by practice. Like a generous man he gave his dis- 

 covery to the public, and the public, of course, were very much 

 interested in it. One by one he answered all objections, till 

 the unknowing ones began to think that here at last was really 

 the philosopher's stone. But one fine day a knowing one 

 stepped in and demolished his El Dorado with a word, show- 

 ing that if on every race every bookmaker was prepared at any 

 moment to give or take on every horse precisely the odds, no 

 more and no less, you wished to take or give, then your system 

 would be infallible, but not till then. 



Now it is pretty much the same with verbal lessons on 

 riding. If at any particular crisis all the circumstances exactly 

 tally with those your teacher has selected for the purpose of his 

 lesson, well and good. If you have read with understanding, 

 and your memory be good, as we have already said, you may 

 come triumphantly through the difficulty. But how rarely will 

 that happen ! Take a single instance. We all know that we 

 should ride fast at water and slow at timber. Theoretically the 

 advice is excellent ; no advice could be more so. But can any 

 rider of experience say honestly that he has not often been 

 obliged to throw it to the wind ? Some horses must be ridden 

 quickly at all their fences ; some horses must be ridden slowly. 

 A first-rate rider used to say that he not only rode every horse 

 differently, but he rode the same horse differently at every 

 fence. Why te- Melville, who records this saying, explains it 

 thus : ' He had his system of course, like every other master of 

 the art, but it admitted of endless variations according to cir- 

 cumstances and the exigencies of the case.' Elsewhere he gives 

 instances from his own personal observation of the various ways 

 good riders put their horses at timber. ' Lord Wilton ' (he was 

 writing in 1878) * seems to me to ride at timber a turn slower 

 than usual, Lord Grey a turn faster. Whether father and son 

 differ in theory I am unable to say, I can only affirm that they 

 both are undeniable in practice. Mr. Fellowes, of Shottisham, 

 perhaps the best of his day, and Mr. Gilmour, facile princeps, 

 almost walk up to this kind of leap ; Colonel, now General 



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