174 A MILITAKY STEEPLE-CHASE 



When we got back after our first day's ride, the 

 Major told me, rather to my amusement, that I 

 must go into training as well as the horse, — adding, 

 what was quite true, that he had seen more amateur 

 races lost through the rider being beat before the 

 horse than by any other means ; so when I had 

 given Jerry his gallops in the morning, I had to 

 start a mile run in the afternoon in flannels or 

 sweaters. 



The course was entirely a natural one, about 

 three miles and a half round, and only two ugly 

 places in it, chiefly grass, with one piece of light 

 plough and some seeds. The first two fences were 

 wattles on a bank, with a small ditch, then an 

 ordinary quickset hedge, followed by an old and 

 stiff bullfinch. After this a post and rails, a bank 

 with a double ditch, and merely ordinary fences 

 till we came to a descent of about a quarter of a 

 mile, with a stream about twelve feet wide, and a 

 bank on the taking- off side. Xext came some grass 

 meadows, with a very nasty trappy ditch, not more 

 than four feet wide, but with not the slightest bank 

 or anything of the kind on either side, — ^just the 

 thing for a careless or tired horse to gallop into. 

 The last fence, which was the worst of all, was, I 

 fancy, the boundary of some estate or parish, and 

 consisted of a high bank, with a good ditch on eacli 



