have not changed masters, but considerable
tracts of them have become—by sufferance,
payment of rent, or tribute of manure—most
excellent and extensive galloping grounds.

Between Paddington and Didcot, among
your fellow travellers in the railway carriage,
is pretty sure to be one at least of these
gentry;  an owner about to make a secret
trial between two favourites; a tout whose
object is to prevent it being secret; or a
sporting gentleman of some sort bound for
the Downs, to pick up, generally, information.
If you make a remark upon the weather
being favourable at last to the country at
large, all these three classes will reply: "Ah,
it'll make the ground deuced heavy for the
Bath races, though."  They are like engaged
young ladies, and care nothing for any subject
unconnected with the ring; they are full of
the most solemn and sacred facts respecting
the Brother to Bojardo, imparted to them in
confidence by parties who ought to know; if
you get very intimate with the two latter
kind, they will perhaps permit you to stand
in for a good thing, upon the payment of a
fiver or a tenner—which last is a bank-note
and not a musical performer—according to
the prospects of success. The higher members
of this profession, it may be observed, are
continuously sucking cane-tops and handles
of hunting-whips, while the inferior orders
devour vast quantities of straw.

Let us accompany any of these to the chief
exercising ground upon the Downs any
summer morning between nine and twelve. It is
common to several trainers, and the various
bodies of cavalry keep pretty wide apart.
Most of the horses are in a complete suit of
embroidered clothes, with coverings over the
head and ears, and little gaiters above their
fetlocks; they are entered probably in
approaching race-meetings, and are sweating
down every ounce of superfluous flesh; where
parts of their natural coats are to be seen,
they shine like mirrors; those without clothes
start with one of these from under the hill,
and race with them at utmost speed for dis-
tances varying from half a mile to two miles;
the trainers watch their every stride, and
notice an improvement or something wrong,
as the case may be.

These men have all one wary and impassive
look; dressed, too, almost exactly alike, with
a white silk scarf pinned with a horse's foot,
and trousers tight to the leg. Some have the
morning papers in their hands, and are com-
paring their books with the latest betting;
some are what is called letting out at their
jockeys for misconduct, which they accomplish
with much energy and varied epithet; and
some are standing with their legs very wide
apart, doing nothing particular—except of
course the suction before alluded to.

We have an acquaintance of some years
with this particular gentleman, and are
privileged to address him: ''Why, Mr. Chifney,
do you enter that little horse of yours for a
race like the Derby, when you know he has
no chance with Sharpshooter; don't intend to
run him; and must needs pay twenty-
five pounds forfeit?"    "Sir," says he (and he
will tell you the whole truth if there is no
professional reason for adopting a contrary
course), " one does pay a good many
twenty-five pounds in this world for the mere
satisfaction of being in with a good un! " This
gentleman, it will be observed, is an acute
philosopher; he is also a consummate man
of business, and after the Derby is run next
Wednesday, will be worth twenty thousand
pounds, or remain no worse than at
present. But here is the crack, Sharpshooter
himself, about to take his second gallop; not
a large horse he looks, and hampered with a
weight of clothes — yet see what he shall do!
Three other (unclothed) horses are placed at
equal distances of about half a mile apart;
the hindmost starts with the favourite at full
speed, and gets him into his stride at once;
when they arrive opposite the second horse,
he takes up the running, and so on to the
third, who finishes, and is also beaten off:
these three animals have been kept entirely
for the use and benefit of Sharpshooter for
the last three months. Let us come as close
to him as the jock will let us—and that is
not very close, for how does he know but that
we have laid a plum against him, and are
compassing his death?— and listen with what
evenness he breathes; scarcely a sign of that
long course of his at fullest speed. What
indefatigable pains have been expended on his
training, what watch has been kept upon his
slightest change, what close precaution now
over his safety, closer as the day draws near!
To hurt that horse, ever so slightly, and to
be detected by his stable, would be a murder
matter for the coroner; two strong men and
a savage bulldog are his companions every
night.

He has been attended from his birth like a
young prince, by lords in waiting and grooms
of his chamber; his noble owner, so proud
was he of possessing a colt by Musketeer out
of Popgunetta, gave a party to commemorate
his foaling; his fashionable arrival was also
in the Morning Post, for he was entered for
the Derby after next, in the first month of
his existence; at that miniature period he
began to be calculated upon, and hedged
about, and stood in with, and made a good
thing of, until this present time, when he has
reached the culminating point of the "perfect
certainty" of his stable. In some little
sheltered paddock about one of our Down villages
he enjoyed a mother's love and the tender
solicitude of his trainer; as soon as hay and
bran and corn began to be palatable to him
he got them; when he became bored with
milk and domesticity they were withdrawn
from him; when he was yet a yearling, his
education was not neglected; a halter was
cunningly contrived about his head, with a
ring through it in front, and the youthful