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Updated: June 29, 2025
It is bad enough in England, where steeplechases only take place in winter, when the ground is soft, where the horses are properly schooled before being raced, and where most of the obstacles will yield a little if struck and give the horse a chance to blunder over safely.
Unconsciously it took him back to the old buried days, when the Devonshire moors and Devonshire lanes knew no hotter rider than Peter Carew. To the steeplechases, when he was so slim and wiry that, in spite of his height, he had ridden many a horse to victory. To the polo matches, when his matchless horsemanship had scored goal after goal for his regiment of picked riders.
His friendliness was overwhelming. Before the end of lunch he had invited Sir Maurice to dine with him at his mess, to dine with him at two of his clubs, to shoot with him, to ride a horse of his in the forthcoming regimental steeplechases, to go with him on a yachting cruise in the Mediterranean. All through the afternoon his friendliness grew and grew.
A little more than a year after this, and the yellow corn was waving on the fertile plains of Normandy, fruit ripening in orchards on hillside and in valley; merry holiday folks splashing and dabbling in the waves that wash the yellow sands of Dieppe; horses coming to grief in Norman steeplechases; desperate gamesters losing their francs and half-francs in all kinds of frivolous games in the Dieppe etablissement; and yonder, in the heart of Normandy, beyond the tall steeples of Rouen, a happy family assembled at the Chateau Cotenoir.
I've heard him say that American football was not as brutal as our fox-hunting and that fewer people were killed or injured. We play polo and we ride in steeplechases and the papers are full of accidents. I don't believe Americans are more brutal or less civilized in their sports than we are, not in the least."
"On the contrary, Prince," Lady Grace exclaimed, "you shall ride her, and I am going to back you for all I am worth." Bransome, who was also in riding clothes, although he was not taking part in the steeplechases himself, glanced at the clock. "You are running it rather fine," he said. "You'll scarcely have time to hack round the course." "Some one must explain it to me," the Prince said.
Corbario produced cigarettes and offered one to Marcello, but the boy would not smoke; he said that it made him cough. "I should smoke all the time, if I were quite well," he said, with a smile. "And do many other things that young men do, I daresay," laughed Corbario. "Ride steeplechases, play cards all night, and drink champagne at breakfast." "Perhaps." Marcello was amused at the picture.
There is no harm in steeplechases if you do not break your neck, nor in playing cards if you do not play high, nor in drinking a glass of champagne now and then no harm at all, that I can see. But, of course, so long as your lungs are delicate, you must be careful." "Confound my lungs!" exclaimed Marcello with unusual energy. "I believe that I am much stronger than any of you think."
She reminded him of a cream-tinted monkey in the maddest of steeplechases. He was glad when she came to a stop. The town seemed to lay to their right. Before them were the scattered lights of the harbor and the mild crescent of the outer bay. They could see the white wheeling finger of some foreign gunboat as its searchlight played back and forth in the darkness.
People who talk about the jumps in steeplechases at home being hard should try a run over a colonial course of 4-feet-6-inch post and rails. The horses are accustomed to it, but not so always the riders. Up in the bush there is plenty of kangaroo-hunting to be got at almost any station. The squatters often pay a shilling a head for kangaroos, and very fair sport they afford when not too numerous.
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