How easy it looks to go cantering along over a nice grass country, properly flagged out so as to insure the performers from making any mistakes; and how trifling the obstacles appear over which they are following each other like a string of wild geese, more particularly when you, the spectator, are quietly ensconced in a comfortable seat, sheltered from the wind, and viewing the sports at a respectful distance. Perhaps you might not think it quite such child’s play were you assisting in the pageant on the back of a headstrong, powerful horse, rendered irritable and violent by severe training (of which discipline this unfortunate class of animal gets more than enough), rasping your knuckles against his withers, and pulling your arms out of their sockets, because he, the machine, is all anxiety to get to the end, whilst you the controlling, or who ought to be the controlling power, have received strict injunctions “to wait.” If your whole energies were not directed to the one object of “doing your duty” and winning your race, you might possibly have leisure to reflect on your somewhat hazardous position. “Neck-or-nothing” has just disappeared, doubling up himself and Mr. Fearless in a complicated kind of fall, at the very place over which you must necessarily follow; and should your horse, who is shaking his head furiously, as you vainly endeavour to steady him, make the slightest mistake, you shudder to think of “Frantic” running away with her rider close behind you. Nevertheless, it is impossible to decline “eternal misery on this side and certain death on the other,” but _go you must_, and when safe into the next field there is nothing of any importance till you come to the brook. To be sure, the animal you are riding never would _face water_, still, your spurs are sharp, and you have a vague sort of trust that you may get over _somehow_. You really deserve to win, yet will we, albeit unused to computation of the odds, willingly bet you five to four that you are neither first nor second.