, that their danger is comparatively trifling.
Of the temperaments and habits of blood-horses there are great
varieties, and those very strongly contrasted. The majority of them are
playful, but their gambols are dangerous to the timid or unskilful. They
are all easily and suddenly alarmed, when anything they do not
understand forcibly catches their attention, and they are then to be
feared by the bad horseman, and carefully guarded against by the good.
Very serious accidents have happened to the best. But, besides their
general disposition to playfulness, there is a great propensity in them
to become what the jockeys call vicious. High bred, hot in blood,
exercised, fed and dressed so as to bring that heat to perfection, their
tender skins at all times subject to a sharp curry-comb, hard brushing,
and when they take sweats, to scraping with wooden instruments, it
cannot be but that they are frequently and exceedingly irritated.
Intending to make themselves felt and feared, they will watch their
opportunity to bite, stamp, or kick; I mean those among them that are
vicious. Tom, the brother of Jack Clarke, after sweating a gray horse
that belonged to Lord March, with whom he lived, while he was either
scraping or dressing him, was seized by the animal by the shoulder,
lifted from the ground, and carried two or three hundred yards before
the horse loosened his hold. Old Forrester, a horse that belonged to
Captain Vernon, all the while that I remained at Newmarket, was obliged
to be kept apart, and being foundered, to live at grass, where he was
confined to a close paddock. Except Tom Watson, he would suffer no lad
to come near him; if in his paddock, he would run furiously at the
first person that approached, and if in the stable, would kick and
assault every one within his reach. Horses of this kind seem always to
select their favourite boy. Tom Watson, indeed, had attained to man's
estate, and in his brother's absence, which was rare, acted as
superintendent. Horses, commonly speaking, are of a friendly and
generous nature; but there are anecdotes of the malignant and savage
ferocity of some, that are scarcely to be credited; at least many such
are traditional at Newmarket.

Of their friendly disposition towards their keepers, there is a trait
known to every boy that has the care of any one of them, which ought not
to be omitted. The custom is to rise very early, even between two and
three in the morning, when the days