ON STEEPLE-CHASING. 293 



and supervises every " legitimate " race- 

 meeting in the kingdom. 



Yet steeple-chasing had a good set-ofF ; 

 many nohlemen and gentlemen at first 

 supporting it, and giving good prices for 

 horses in hopes of winning its prizes, or 

 failing this, of possessing valuable hunters 

 for their own use. Finding, however, that 

 they were seldom allowed to win, while 

 their horses were generally spoiled for 

 hunting, they gradually abandoned the sport 

 to a lower class of supporters ; and although 

 there has been somewhat of a revival in 

 the interest taken in it of late years, steeple- 

 chasing is still regarded with a great deal 

 of not altogether unjustified suspicion, by 

 men who are ready enough to own and run 

 horses under Jockey Club rules. 



From the spectator's point of view the 

 unpopularity of steeple-chasing as compared 

 with flat-racing is not so easy to under- 

 stand. One would rather have expected it 



