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therefore require both jumping and riding, for none but a horse 

 thoroughly schooled can get over them in safety. 



In England there are Aintree, Sandown, and other courses with 

 fences stiff enough to test the best horse and man, and we have 

 Leopardstown modelled on the lines of Sandown, though not as stiff 

 as Aintree. The fences in all these courses are artificial, and lack the 

 zest of the old naturals, but they sufficiently answer the purpose for 

 which steeplechasing was originally and properly intended ; and if the 

 old sport is to be saved from perdition, both the English and Irish 

 head-quarters should forthwith command that all other courses shall be 

 constructed equally stiff. 



Our Irish horses run so often now at English meetings, it was good 

 and wise of the Leopardstown executive to construct a course upon the 

 English lines ; and it was equally so of our I.X.H.S.C. to institute 

 the regulation fence, which, if made with the hedge, is precisely like 

 Kome of the Aintree and other English fences. It was considerate, 

 however, of them to leave it optional with executives to have this fence 

 either a bank or hedge ; for to most Irish horses the former is the easier, 

 a hedge with wide grip and rail in front being very uncommon in Ireland. 



But what an amount of talking and writing there was against this same 

 regulation fence when it was first introduced ; principally by people 

 who were as capable of forming a correct opinion on the subject as they 

 were of riding over the fence itself. That has now, naturally, all 

 subsided, and men have schooled their horses so that the "ghastly 

 grave," when made and located properly, is negotiated as safely as any 

 other fence in the race. 



By the way, does it appear to those who have to construct a regula- 

 tion fence of the " bank " character that it is simply a single bank, 

 with a grip of 6ft. wide and 4ft. deep in front, and that any ordinary 

 double can be utilised by filling up the off-side in a slant from outside 

 the grip to the top of the fence ? There was not much trouble in con- 

 verting the up-fence at the top turn past the stand at Punchestown 

 into a regulation fence — ^just half an hour's work for a man with a spade 

 to widen the grip to 6ft. This had to be done to conform with the 

 rule that a fence 3ft. high, with a 6ft. grii) in front, should b 3 in every 

 two miles of a course — the natural doubles doing the duty over the 

 remainder of grand old Punchestown. 



It is not everybody who can lay out a steeplechase course to be raced 

 over with reasonable safety. Few indeed can do so, and a most extra- 

 ordinary fact is that very often the best rider over the course when laid 

 out is the worst man to lay it out. This has been demonstrated many times. 



About the very best gentleman jockey of the present day, in reply 

 to a question I asked him lately as to the height of the double into 

 the Herd's Garden at Punchestown, and which he had ridden over at 

 least one hundred times, said it was five feet high, and would have 

 bet me a tenner on it had I allowed him. Now, the fact is, the actual 

 height of that fence from the edge of the grip on the take-off to where 

 the horses land on top is about 2ft. 9in., certainly under 3ft. This 



