BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 135 



sensible man, if lie finds he cannot be first or second, 

 does not care a whit whether he is fifth or last. In 

 the latter case he walks his horse composedly in ; 

 his personal vanity is not hurt, he is conscious he 

 did all that could be done for, and was proper to do 

 with, his horse ; feels he is known as a good rider, 

 and if he has any vanity it would be more gratified 

 by it being allowed he had ridden a losing race well, 

 than a winning one where it was seen the goodness 

 of his horse had carried him through in spite of bad 

 riding. 



It is quite true that the best of riders will often 

 persevere with a horse they feel to be dead beat ; 

 but when they do, it is usually under something like 

 the following circumstance. The leading horse is, 

 we will say, a couple of hundred yards a-head, the 

 second, best part of a hundred behind him ; to 

 attempt to catch either with a tired horse would of 

 course be the act of an idiot or a madman ; but there 

 being only two a head, and all the rest behind, 

 such are the casualties of steeple-chasing, that the 

 third keeps on (but nursing his horse all the way) ; 



