CHAPTER IV 



THE ABUSE OF THE SPUR 



"You may ride us, 

 With one soft kiss, a thousand furlongs, ere 

 With spurs we heat an acre" — ■ 



O AYS Hermione, and indeed that gentle lady's 

 ^ illustration equally applies to an inferior 

 order of beings, from which also man derives 

 much comfort and delight. It will admit of 

 discussion whether the "armed heel," with all 

 its terrors, has not, on the racecourse at least, 

 lost more triumphs than it has won. 



I have been told that Fordham, who seems to 

 be first past the judges' chair oftener than any 

 jockey of the day, wholly repudiates "the 

 tormentors," arguing that they only make a 

 horse shorten his stride, and " shut up," to use 

 an expressive term, instead of struggling gallantly 

 home. Judging by analogy, it is easy to conceive 

 that such may be the case. The tendency of the 

 human frame seems certainly to contract rather 

 than expand its muscles, with instinctive repug- 



56 



