English gentlemen meet each other in fair and honest emulation, and
enjoy the favourite national sport in perfection. The 'Waler' race, for
imported Australians, brings out fine, tall, strong-boned, clean-limbed
horses, looking blood all over. The country breds, with slender limbs,
small heads, and glossy coats, look dainty and delicate as antelopes.
The lovely, compact Arabs, the pretty-looking ponies, and the
thick-necked, coarse-looking Cabools, all have their respective trials,
and then comes the great event--the race of the day--the Steeplechase.

The course is marked out behind the grand stand, following a wide
circle outside the flat course, which it enters at the quarter-mile
post, so that the finish is on the flat before the grand stand. The
fences, ditches, and water leap, are all artificial, but they are
regular _howlers_, and no make-believes.

Seven horses are despatched to a straggling start, and all negotiate
the first bank safely. At the next fence a regular _snorter_ of a 'post
and rail'--topped with brushwood--two horses swerve, one rider being
deposited on his racing seat upon mother earth, while the other sails
away across country in a line for home, and is next heard of at the
stables. The remaining five, three 'walers' and two country-breds, race
together to the water jump, where one waler deposits his rider, and
races home by himself, one country-bred refuses, and is henceforth out
of the race, and the other three, taking the leap in beautiful style,
put on racing pace to the next bank, and are in the air together. A
lovely sight! The country is now stiff, and the stride of the waler
tells. He is leading the country-breds a 'whacker,' but he stumbles and
falls at the last fence but one from home. His gallant rider, the
undaunted 'Roley,' remounts just as the two country-breds pass him like
a flash of light. 'Nothing venture, nothing win,' however, so in go the