JOCKEYS 51 



be attended with little difficulty to mention the 

 names of a number of horses within a given time 

 that have most sensibly 'lost speed,' and all of 

 them, with scarcely an exception, from the same 

 cause. These stride out quite evenly, and appar- 

 ently with plenty of vigor, but the 'recoil' is slow, 

 and if you watch it closely, you will observe it to 

 be intermittent, and finally to unmistakably 'dwell,' 

 as the horse continufs to gallop. 



When a horse, so to speak, lingei's or dwells in 

 his stride in the way I have described, the reten- 

 tion of a certain fixed rate of speed is out of the 

 question, and as this infirmity increases he be- 

 comes slower and slower as time goes on. 



Then, again, how often we hear it stated, and also 

 see it in print, that during a race a certain horse 

 had 'turned it up' or ' cut it when the pinch came,' 

 but for which he 'undoubtedly would have won!' 

 This is alwaj's set down to be an exhibition of 

 temper, and many a good horse has paid the penal- 

 ty of his sex in consequence of it, and been from 

 thence on transformed into a jumper. 



Now, what is the origin of this failure in 're- 

 coil,' this 'lingering or dwelling' by a horse in his 

 stride, which I have ventured to stigmatize as an 

 'infirmity'? The origin or seat of ailment — if such 

 it can be called — may best be stated as a weaken- 

 ing or slackening of the spinal structure, the mus- 



