The death-record among Australian cross-country jockeys and horses
is very great; it is a curious instance of how custom sanctifies all things
that such horse-and-man slaughter is accepted in such a callous way.
If any theatre gave a show at which men and horses were habitually
crippled or killed in full sight of the audience, the manager would be
put on his trial for manslaughter.

Our race-tracks use up their yearly average of horses and men
without attracting remark. One would suppose that the risk being so great
the profits were enormous; but they are not. In "the game" as played
on our racecourses there is just a bare living for a good capable horseman
while he lasts, with the certainty of an ugly smash if he keeps at it
long enough.

And they don't need to keep at it very long. After a few good "shakings"
they begin to take a nip or two to put heart into them before they go out,
and after a while they have to increase the dose. At last they cannot
ride at all without a regular cargo of alcohol on board, and are either
"half-muzzy" or shaky according as they have taken too much or too little.

Then the game becomes suicidal; it is an axiom that as soon as a man
begins to funk he begins to fall. The reason is that a rider who has
lost his nerve is afraid of his horse making a mistake, and takes a pull,
or urges him onward, just at the crucial moment when the horse is rattling
up to his fence and judging his distance. That little, nervous pull
at his head or that little touch of the spur, takes his attention
from the fence, with the result that he makes his spring a foot too far off
or a foot too close in, and -- smash!

The loafers who hang about the big fences rush up to see if the jockey