64 FLAT-RAGING EXPLAINED. 



seek to disparage their efforts in any way; but for 

 all that, I do not shut my eyes to there being much 

 room for improvement. There is room for scientific 

 advancement in the art of race-riding, and I shonkl 

 be no friend to them or their calling if I did not say 

 so. It is out of the question they will ever go back 

 to the time when one of their order evinced his 

 intelligence in describing a horse as "a thing with 

 four legs, like a table;" but for all that, race-riding 

 to be a perfect art must be capable of much more 

 than we have seen. As an instance of this, as 

 showing the shortcomings of race-riding in one 

 particular only, without going into others that are 

 present to me as I write, take the case of a jockey 

 riding what is called a "waiting race," and the 

 effect it has from a practical, as well as from a 

 scientific, point of view. In thus riding, by force 

 of circumstances, a jockey is compelled to sit back 

 in the saddle. If the horse is not a puller, and only 

 needs to be "steadied," the weight in the seat of the 

 saddle impedes the "curve" in the back of the 

 horse, by which his stride is shortened to the extent 

 that in a race of five furlongs only, several lengths 

 ^will be lost. If the horse is only a moderate puller, 

 the act of holding against the horse has the effect 

 not only of shortening the horse's stride to the ex- 

 tent I have said, but it becomes a lever, with the 

 seat in the saddle as the fulcrum, against the curve 



