United States or Andorra ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Day Star ran them close, the property of Durham Vavassour, of the Scots Greys, and to be ridden by his owner; a handsome, flea-bitten, gray sixteen-hander, with ragged hips, and action that looked a trifle string-halty, but noble shoulders, and great force in the loins and withers; the rest of the field, though unusually excellent, did not find so many "sweet voices" for them, and were not so much to be feared; each starter was, of course, much backed by his party, but the betting was tolerably even on these four all famous steeple-chasers the King at one time, and Bay Regent at another, slightly leading in the Ring.
Then, from the house tops, he can pick them off like blackbirds. It's awful! Is there nothing that we can do, Prince? Damn it all, I know we can force a gate. And if we once get in where those cowardly dogs are lording it, you'll see 'em take the walls like steeple-chasers." "My dear Mr. King," said Prince Dantan calmly, "you don't know Colonel Quinnox and the House Guard.
But nobody ever heard of "a sire calculated to get steeple-chasers". The cleverness and the special qualities that make a good steeple-chaser are not transmitted. The best have been horses of poor appearance, often small and unsightly, that have been given up by the trainer as incapable of winning in flat-races.
Beyond the Gordons' was the modest home of an Irish baronet, Sir Thomas O'Hara. Sir Tom was a bachelor of sixty. When not in training to ride his own steeple-chasers, he was putting up his hands against any man in England who would face him for a few friendly rounds.
Lawrence, upon which I strode forward with renewed energy, steering my course, like the primitive steeple-chasers of my boyhood's home, upon the highest church-tower looming up from the heterogeneous huddle of motley houses that just showed their gable-tops over the low ring of mist which mingled with the smoke of the Lower Town.
To live with one's hands ever daubed with chalk from a billiard-table, to be always spying into stables and rubbing against grooms, to put up with the narrow lodgings which needy men encounter at race meetings, to be day after day on the rails running after platers and steeple-chasers, to be conscious on all occasions of the expediency of selling your beast when you are hunting, to be counting up little odds at all your spare moments these things do not, I think, make a satisfactory life for a young man.
Word Of The Day