Steeple-Chasing 285 



It is an interesting sight to see the young horse being 

 taught the business in which it is hoped that he will 

 shine. He has good shoulders, and as regards make and 

 shape the essentials for a chaser — in fact, to employ 

 the technical phrase, 'looks like jumping.' Kindness, 

 patience, and good * hands ' are the requisites in the 

 teacher — a good seat is understood, but most boys in 

 training stables have this. Few young horses hit upon 

 just what is wanted at first. To begin with, they generally 

 make too much fuss about it, clearing each little fence 

 in their nursery ground as though it were the ditch in a 

 real steeple-chase, just as after a career over the danger- 

 ously easy fences of the average modern course they get 

 careless ; for this paradox may be taken as a fact : the 

 more easy a course is, the more dangerous it is likely to 

 prove. If steeple-chase courses were what they should 

 be, only steeple-chase horses would run over them — 

 that is to say, horses that had been duly schooled and 

 taught their business ; and these fences would require 

 so much jumping that the rider would be forced to steady 

 his horse at least a little to make him go at the obstacle 

 in something like collected form, instead of galloping at 

 and ' chancing it.' 



Here, however, is our young one coming — we had 

 almost lost sight of him. He is to have his first gallop 

 at racing pace over his training ground, having been 

 through his course of schooling and acquitted himself 

 well. We will take our place by this fence and watch. 



The big brown is a well-known chaser who wants 

 a gallop ; the grey mare is a hunter — a genuine hunter 

 by profession — who is to be run at a local meeting, and 

 is let into the spin to see what pace she has — if any ; and 

 the bright chesnut, on which the trainer himself has 



