TIME. 97 



must be an angle at which the ground is struck by 

 the feet, at present unknown to us. It is quite 

 certain all horses do not strike the ground in anj^ 

 degree to be relative, or speed would certainly be 

 more uniform. Speed, however, differs to the ex- 

 tent that on some gradients horses are fast, while 

 their relative speed on others is, for some un- 

 known reason, comparatively slow. Of course it 

 will be understood I refer to sound horses, those 

 that can be depended upon to give their natural 

 rate of speed, whatever it may be, on all gradients, 

 as also on the level. 



As I have said before, horses are predisposed to 

 repeat their performance on the same ground with 

 little variation time after time, and, upsetting as 

 it will be to handicap notions, the weight they may 

 have on their backs is not, comparatively speak- 

 ing, of very material consequence. Persons have 

 seen dead-beats, when run off, again repeated, and 

 close shaves of short heads, and heads and neck^ 

 in matches times out of number. Of these I have 

 seen many. 



But more striking still is the fact that horses 

 will come after a longish interval of months, or it 

 may be a year or more, and over the same ground 

 there will scarcely be a pin to choose between the 

 performances. A direct illustration of this oc- 



