CONFESSIONS OF A DUFFER.

NO. X.--THE DUFFER ON THE TURF.

"A horse for a protection is a deceitful thing," as the Scotch
translator of KING DAVID has it, and I entirely agree with him. I
rather wish to be protected from a horse, than expect any succour
from a creature so large, muscular and irrational. Far from being
"courageous," as his friends say, the horse (I am not speaking of the
war-horse) is afraid of almost everything, that is why I am afraid
of him. He is a most nervous animal, and I am a nervous rider. He is
afraid of a bicycle or a wheel-barrow, which do not alarm the most
timid bipeds, and when he is afraid he shies, and when he shies I no
longer remain. Irrational he is, or he would not let people ride him,
however, I never met a horse that would let _me_ do so. It is with the
horse as an instrument of gambling that I am concerned. In that sense
I have "backed" him, in no other sense to any satisfactory result.
With all his four legs he stumbles more than one does with only
a pair, an extraordinary proof of his want of harmony with his
environment.

I was beguiled on to the Turf by winning a small family
sweepstakes--£3 in fact. A sporting cousin told me that I had better
"put it on _Cauliflower_," who was the favourite for The City and
Suburban. He put it on _Cauliflower_ for me, and we won, so that a
career of easy opulence seemed open. Then I took to backing horses,
a brief madness. I read all the sporting papers, and came to the
conclusion that the prophets are naught. If you look at their
vaticinations, you will find that they all select their winners out