5 TEEPLE- Chasing 281 



our horses, casts-off from the flat, as they often are. The 

 latter are not tramed to stay exceptional distances ; if 

 they were, a fair proportion of them would probably do so. 

 Nevertheless, one cannot but regret the contests of a by- 

 gone age, and admit that there was more of the real 

 spirit of sport in them than in the ' fashionable ' San- 

 down chases of to-day — infinitely more. 



Pluck has in no way decreased. Not long since a 

 good man who is still to the fore, Mr. Arthur Yates, broke 

 his collar-bone on his way to the post for a four-mile 

 steeple-chase, but took so little notice of the matter that 

 he rode his race and was beaten only by a short head. 

 On another occasion, the same rider, after a bad fall, 

 caught his horse by the tail, and, getting somehow into 

 the saddle, won in a canter. The sound horsemanship 

 of Mr. J. M. Kichardson, the delicate handling of Mr. 

 Arthur Coventry, were probably never approached by 

 the good men of half a century back ; yet there was 

 something about these old chases which calls for special 

 admiration. 



A great deal more tax was laid on a man's resource. 

 He had not to jump so many regulation fences, but to 

 find his way over the country. Discretion aided him, or* 

 want of discretion stopped him, as the case might be. 

 He had ground of all sorts to cross, and here his 

 judgment was tested — how best to get over the plough ; 

 whether it was a good thing to ride a little out of the 

 line, where the going was heavy, to splash down that 

 watery furrow ; how to manage the ridges, whether to 

 chance that boggy piece and dash boldly through it, or 

 to cast about for firmer ground. To weigh all this, and 

 to pick good places at the jumps — the country was a stiff 

 one, but a man did not select ugly places for the sake of 



