288 Steeple-Chasing 



perceive that the home efforts were sadly delusive, and 

 that when it comes to the real thing she is altogether 

 out of her element. 



Let us canter across and take up a station at the 

 spot where they are to finish. They near the last fence, 

 and the young one is a couple of lengths ahead. Except 

 that he is a little too eager, he comes over in grand style, 

 taking off, indeed, six or eight feet too soon, and jumping 

 big, but none the less easily and cleverly. The brown 

 slips over in his almost mechanical style, and then — for 

 this is a bit of a test if not quite a set trial — his rider tries 

 to overhaul the chesnut ; but though the old horse 

 answers to the call as well as he can when the rider's 

 whip is raised, the leader, hardly out of a canter, holds 

 his own, his trainer turning his head as they jump, so 

 entirely at home is he * in the air,' to see what the followers 

 are doing. As for the hunter, she has lumbered up to 

 the last fence, stopped almost dead from sheer distress, 

 gamely thrown herself over, landing anyhow, and is 

 coming on at the best pace she can raise — which is a very 

 bad one — far in the rear. The young one promises well. 

 The grey is a hunter and not a racehorse, which to 

 all intents and purposes the chaser of to-day must be. 



The old Idnd of sport has not quite died out, but it 

 would be pleasant to see it more common. Local hunt 

 meetings over natural countries chosen in some part of 

 the hunt, with occasionally a point-to-point race — which 

 is to all intents and purposes the veritable old steeple- 

 chase — are still held, and a good deal of fun surrounds 

 them. Not that the word ' fun ' describes the affair 

 from Fluffyer's point of view, when the last act of 

 the comedy is reached. Fluffy er is one of the men who 

 are most fond of hunting in the summer when there 



