150 TRAINING. 



notwithstanding any instructions you may have re- 

 ceived as to lying by, to allow the horse partly to 

 make his own race : you can try to ease him a little as 

 this over-eagerness subsides. In riding a match, a 

 good caste horse against an indifferent caste one, al- 

 ways, after the first hundred yards, rate him well 

 the whole way so as to make him fairly shut up by 

 the time he arrives at the distance post ; for his ob- 

 ject, if he is up to it, will be (thus over-matched) to 

 make a waiting race of it. 



You cannot expect to carry off all you start for 

 the first season of your novitiate : added to muscle, 

 bone, blood, make, a good constitution, good training, 

 and good riding, you must use the greatest discrimin- 

 ation as to entering for a long or a short race, or long 

 or short heats, and also to the weights. Some horses 

 will fly with eight stone, yet prove very sorry with 

 ten stone. Some will carry the ten stone well enough 

 for a single race, yet fail in heats. Besides this, the 

 course being hard or soft, light or heavy, dry or wet, 

 up hill, down hill, or level, all and each make a won- 

 derful difference in performance. There is not a 

 horse in existence who, in some race or other, will 

 not gain an advantage from one of these causes. 

 Straight pasterns and tender feet, for instance, are 

 not adapted to a hard course, nor slight legs and 

 slanting pasterns to a heavy one ; so, however confi- 

 dent you may be in having the best horse, never be 

 too sanguine as to gaining : the best horse is rarely 

 the best for all descriptions of races, weights, and 

 courses. 



Many beginners are much dissatisfied at strangers 

 or acquaintances running down their horses. No- 



