ake a second place
For me--for me--
While a short "ten-three"
Has a field to squander or fence to face!

Song of the G. R.

There are more ways of running a horse to suit your book than pulling
his head off in the straight. Some men forget this. Understand clearly
that all racing is rotten--as everything connected with losing money
must be. Out here, in addition to its inherent rottenness, it has the
merit of being two-thirds sham; looking pretty on paper only. Every one
knows every one else far too well for business purposes. How on earth
can you rack and harry and post a man for his losings, when you are fond
of his wife, and live in the same Station with him? He says, "on the
Monday following, I can't settle just yet." You say, "All right, old
man," and think your self lucky if you pull off nine hundred out of
a two-thousand rupee debt. Any way you look at it, Indian racing is
immoral, and expensively immoral. Which is much worse. If a man wants
your money, he ought to ask for it, or send round a subscription-list,
instead of juggling about the country, with an Australian larrikin;
a "brumby," with as much breed as the boy; a brace of chumars in
gold-laced caps; three or four ekka-ponies with hogged manes, and a
switch-tailed demirep of a mare called Arab because she has a kink in
her flag. Racing leads to the shroff quicker than anything else. But
if you have no conscience and no sentiments, and good hands, and some
knowledge of pace, and ten years' experience of horses, and several
thousand rupees a month, I believe that you can occasionally contrive to
pay your shoeing-bills.

Did you ever know Shackles--b. w. g., 15.13.8--coarse, loose, mule-like
ears--barrel as long as a gate-post--tough as a telegraph-wire--and the
queerest brute that ever looked through a bridle? He was of no brand,
being one of an ear-nicked mob taken into the Bucephalus at 4l.-10s. a
head to make up freight, and sold raw and out of condition at Calcutta
for Rs. 275. People who lost money on him called him a "brumby;" but if
ever any horse had Harpoon's shoulders and The Gin's temper, Shackles
was that horse. Two miles was his own particular distance. He trained
himself, ran himself, and rode himself; and, if his jockey insulted
him by giving him hints, he shut up at once and bucked the boy off. He
objected to dictation. Two or three of his owners did not understand
th