Concerning a Steeplechase Rider



Of all the ways in which men get a living there is none so hard
and so precarious as that of steeplechase-riding in Australia.
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.

In Australia the men have to go at racing-speed, on very hard ground,
over the most rigid and uncompromising obstacles -- ironbark rails
clamped into solid posts with bands of iron. No wonder they are always
coming to grief, and are always in and out of hospital
in splints and bandages. Sometimes one reads that a horse has fallen
and the rider has "escaped with a severe shaking."

That "shaking", gentle reader, would lay you or me up for weeks,
with a doctor to look after us and a crowd of sympathetic friends
calling to know how our poor back was. But the steeplechase-rider
has to be out and about again, "riding exercise" every morning,
and "schooling" all sorts of cantankerous brutes over the fences.
These men take their lives in their hands and look at grim death
between their horses' ears every time they race or "school".