60 
ON THE STEEPLE CHASE 
fairly acknowledged, and no party politics shall for one moment 
be found to intrude. 
The history of the epidemic of 1841 will prepare for that of 
1842-3. Here he solicits information from every quarter, and he 
will never abuse the confidence that may be reposed in him. 
These narratives will be a continuation of those that were 
commenced in the last year, and will regularly occupy a cer- 
tain portion of our periodical. 
We have heard from various persons some strange accounts 
of certain steeple chases that have taken place among those who 
ought to be, and who profess to be, the friends of the horse, and 
studying how they shall best relieve him from the ailments to 
which he is too often exposed. It has always struck us that 
there is an inconsistency in this w'hich the advocates of the steeple 
chase can never get over. It is putting to hazard the enjoyment 
and the life of an animal that we are bound by every good and 
honest principle to save from pain and danger. It can have no 
possible recommendation but a boyish recklessness, which, in 
after-years, will be recollected to their cost — will lessen the con- 
fidence of their employers, and frighten from their establishments 
those whose good opinion they would court, and on whom they 
will have to depend for their success in life. It is a folly which 
they themselves, at some future period, will ultimately be the first 
to condemn. 
“ It is,” says Nimrod, “ an unreasonable demand on the noble 
energies of the horse to require him to go, at nearly a racing pace, 
over rough and smooth, sound and dangerous ground — a country 
that has been purposely selected for its danger, and on which 
many a horse has died from the exertion and the accidents of 
the chase.” Has man any delegated power like this over the in- 
ferior creation, and especially the noble horse? — any right thus 
to speculate on his endurance of suffering or escape from danger? 
It would be far better to reserve his own prowess and that of his 
horse for a better and a nobler cause : such an one will occur in 
the course of a long life, and in which the speed, and courage, 
and endurance of both the horse and the rider will most satis- 
factorily be put to the test. 
