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and hold him with one steady dead pull, and let him lounge and stride along as he likes. This of course makes him lean more on the hand, throw more weight on his fore parts, leaving, as I may term it, his hind legs behind him, till he is at last brought to be as slow as a top. It may be said, how can he get slower if he goes the same pace as the other horses? He cannot get to go slower in his regular gallop, because the boy must, if he can, keep his place in the string, and so long as he does so, he will be allowed to ride. him: but though he does keep him in his place SOMEHOW, he brings him into that WAY of going, that, when wanted to race, he can go very little faster. I allow that if it is found he cannot get him along, another boy will be put up; but then the mischief is done. If such a colt had at first been ridden by a strong experienced boy, or, what would have been better, a very light man, he could have roused him along, got at his head the moment he began to bore with it and lean on his fore quarters, and, when he found him beginning to dwell in his stride from want of bringing his hind legs into work, would have set to with him at once, and though it very rarely occurs that a horse should be struck in his exercise, with such a horse, or even colt as this, a stroke or two with an ash plant under his flanks may be quite necessary. Young ones should never be frightened or even flurried," is a very proper maxim, and in nineteen cases in twenty a correct one; but such a young one as I have described wants flurrying and frightening too, or he will both flurry and frighten his owner when he comes to race.

I was no little surprised last year at seeing something like a case in point carried on even to a race-course. I

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saw a boy put on a great lumbering three-year-old, with a heavy saddle and saddle-cloths to make up weight. I had the curiosity to ask why so young a lad was employed? and was told, "the boy had always ridden him in his work." I concluded (though the colt looked very unlike anything of the sort) that he was one of those nervous timid ones that will sometimes run kinder under the boy they are used to than any one else; but on seeing him take his preparatory canter, I saw the lad trying to twist him along, the great brute taking about a stride an hour. It struck me that if this boy had ridden the colt in his work, it would have been much better if he had never ridden him at all. The result of the race was what I should have thought any one would have anticipated: the boy did all He could; the brute was good enough to have won easy, and came up with his horses; but when the boy set to with him merely to get up half a length, he might as well have done so with a dead horse, for he answered him about as much. He put me in mind of a favourite pony of my wife's, when very angry with him for choosing to walk up hills with a rise of about half a yard in a hundred, she sometimes hit him hard enough to frighten, but not to kill a fly, he used on such occasions to give a switch with his beautiful white tail, as much as to say, "I know what you mean, but don't choose to attend to it." This brute of a colt did just the same thing, only his tail happened to be a black one. Now, had Sam Darling been put on him, he would have given him a lesson that would have improved him wonderfully for his next race, and have astonished him a little in this; and had a lad with some of Darling's peculiar ability in riding

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lurching horses ridden this colt from the first, he might have been made a race-horse of. We certainly cannot give a race-horse speed if he has it not in him; but if the want of it in any way proceeds from bad going, what speed he has may be wonderfully improved by teaching him to go better. It would be no use training a man with his legs tied: let us first untie these legs, if we can; if not, do let us give him as much liberty as the string will allow, or let him walk all his life.

I remember once hearing an old gentleman say that he heard Sir Sidney Meadows, the great manége rider, assert, that if Eclipse had been put a few weeks under him he would have made him go faster than he did. Being quite a boy at the time, and riding races occasionally, I laughed very heartily at the idea of putting a race-horse in a manège rider's hands for improvement, and of course such a horse as Eclipse of all others. Many people and all trainers would now laugh as much at the idea as I did then; but though I have not ridden races lately, I have since that time thought more, and begin to think Sir Sidney's idea might not be so very ridiculous as it may at first appear. If an ignorant man had made. such an assertion, it would not have been worth a thought; but a man, who, like Sir Sidney, had made horses an absolute study, was not likely to propose anything respecting them without good grounds for his opinion. He probably could not train or ride a racehorse, but he knew, upon physical principles, what was likely to improve the propelling and progressive powers of the horse much better than any trainer in existence, who probably knows nothing at all about the matter. They know some go, and some do not: if

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EXCELLENCE MAY BE IMPROVED.

they make those fit to go that can go, and then will let them go, it is pretty well, for they won't all do that.

Now

But to return to Eclipse. From the portraits I have seen of him, and from what I have heard of him, it should seein he was by no means a handsome goer, but went very much on his fore-quarters; and horses that do seldom use their hind legs well, that is, do not bring them well under them. I do not allude to the habit Eclipse had of carrying his head low, for it does not always follow that the doing so is occasioned by or the result of throwing the weight on the fore parts, though it mostly is so. suppose Sir Sidney saw some defect like this in Eclipse's going, it is not quite impossible or improbable he might have improved him. It may be said, that, go as he might, he went faster than any horse he ran with granted; but this in no way proves he might not have gone still faster had he gone better. I allow the experiment would have been too dangerous to have tried; but supposing I had a colt that went as it seems this horse did, and did not go fast, I should be much obliged by such a man as Sir Sidney taking him in hand: but I am quite sure no trainer would have allowed him to do so. He would say, nothing but training would improve a colt's manner of going; and would say so because he had heard other trainers of the same opinion, and consequently had never tried anything else or ever would try it.

There are points in a horse's make that may be anything but handsome, but still indicate great speed or stoutness, or both. With such, no man could find fault with a race-horse; so there is a manner of going neither perhaps very handsome to the eye nor pleasant to the rider, but which indicate the same

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qualities; if so, these, though failings in another horse, are perfections in a race-horse: for provided he has speed and stoutness, it matters not how he goes: if he can beat other horses, it is all we want of him, go how he may; but if he cannot, and goes badly, certainly the first thing to be done is to make, or at least leave nothing unattempted to make, him go better, and train him afterwards; even then taking care that the same mode of riding that had improved him (if it had done so) should be kept in mind, and acted upon as far as the thing could be done in accordance with the established rules of training.

There is another case where long striding horses always go under disadvantages when they get to a certain age. They are frequently then sent to country meetings, where the course is always round or oblong, or something like it, often with sharp turns. Here the striding goer comparatively cannot go at all: he must to a certain degree be pulled off his speed at these turns, or go very much out of his ground; or if you prefer it, run the risk of breaking his neck, his rider's, or something else. The quick striking horse whips round these at all but undiminished speed, and the more of them the more in his favour, for he gains by every one; or at least his opponent loses, which is the same thing in point of advantage to the other. Country courses are not always quite as free from inequalities as a billiard table. Here the long strider is often put out of his stroke. This, independently of its unsafety to such a horse, both tires and annoys him: he must go with a regular sweeping stroke, or he can't go at all: when not able to do so, he very often does what is just as bad as (nay, worse than) losing the race; he loses is