THE HIGH-METTLED RACER.

PLATE IV.-THE START.

ENGRAVED BY E. HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY J. F. HERRING, SENR.

"See the course thronged with gazers, the sports are begun,

The confusion but hear!-I'll bet you, Sir-done, done:
Ten thousand strange murmurs resound far and near,

Lords, hawkers, and jockeys, assail the tir'd ear:

While with neck like a rainbow, erecting his crest,

Pamper'd, prancing, and pleased, his head touching his breast,
Scarcely snuffing the air, he's so proud and elate,

The high-mettled racer first starts for the plate."

"Now then, come on there, come on! but mind, any of you starting before or stopping behind the others, or disobeying my orders in any respect remember that, my friend on the grey-will be fined five pounds for each offence. Come now, once more, then-are you ready?".

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Yet stay! just one minute more, if you please, to consider so momentous a question; it is the maiden effort of that brown colt-the purple and orange there—and, really, after all the pains we have taken to bring him out fit, it does make one feel rather nervous and hesitating. Talk of a start in life, a start for Gretna, or a start for the county, with the Mansion House, the blacksmith's shop, or the Speaker's eye as the consummation to be wished! What are one and all of these in comparison with the first start for the plate" ?-the minute-and-a-half's straight spin across the flat, that shall knock down the hopes and labours of months and years, or elevate the unknown into a favourite for the Derby?-the first start, which comes to the first finish in a "won by a length, hard held," that nearly dislocates the shoulder, and quite turns the head of " the worthy owner," in shakes of the hand and swigs of champagne; or "the beaten off," that breaks his faith in favourable trials, and turns his thoughts to travelling expenses ?-The good beginning, that hastens him home to gladden the heart of "the little angel,' who chose the colour and made up the winning jacket; or "the bad finisher," that foreshadows to him the curtain lecture Mrs. R. will prepare on the text of "those horrid race-horses"? It is too late now, however, to debate on all this, for egad! there goes the second bell for saddling, and here comes Harry with the horse.

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The proudest moment" in the life of the high mettled-racer has arrived. Only observe him now, as with an admiring crowd encircled around him, and our lad with a hand in the approved style on either side of his cheek, the careful trainer slowly draws back the checked drapery over his quarter. Mark the fire of his eye, the exquisite beauty in the

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bloodlike head and neck, "like a rainbow;" the playful laying of the ears, and the half inclination to lash out at some blundering booby, who, like Bluebeard's wife, risks his life to gratify his curiosity; the close scrutiny to which every point in that seemingly faultless form is subjected by the initiated, or the scarcely less fixed attention with which all the minutiae of saddling are regarded by the mass. Then, again, the dignity and almost perfect consciousness of worth and birth with which he walks away with the thin booted, satin vested, little man, who has the direction of his fortunes. How collectedly, if not indeed how haughtily, he marches along in the midst of all that plebeian revelling and rioting; and alas! we might add, how ill adapted to ever come in closer contact with it.

"Oh! what a beautiful creature!" lisps a high-born damsel, to whom the anxious owner, all ears and eyes to public opinion, might very justly have returned the compliment.

"By the Lord Harry, though!" chimes in a blue and buff man, who "unts with the Duke," (for we have mustered up courage enough to bring him to Bath after all,)" by the Lord Harry! but that's a nice sort of horse to carry twelve stone to hounds over the Cotswold."

Poor horse and unhappy owner!-come to that stage already.

"Well indeed," says a London silversmith, who on the strength of having once had a bad plater sets up as a good judge, "what a splendid phaeton horse he would make !"

Mercy on the high-mettled but they'll bring him to the hounds quicker than we could sing it.

Still though, we will harden our hearts for one more, and here we have it, from that tall, pale, noble looking man, walking up the middle of the course:

"Ah! and what do you call this, Mr. Butler ?"

"The Hero, my lord," returns Frank, touching his cap, and stopping his horse for Lord George" to look over him.

And while his lordship honours him and us so far, we may as well turn to our card, and see how they have entered it :-' -There you have him, for the County Member's Plate of fifty, added to a sweepstakes of five sovereigns each

Mr. Rogerson's br. c. The Hero, by Sir Hercules, 3 years;
Purple body, Orange sleeves, and Black cap.

One-two-five-seven others against him, though they surely can't all come to the post; and after the form in which he went up this very minute, we're ready to lay a hundred even The Hero beats anything and "bar none."

The scene at the starting-post in the present day is strangely different from what it was in the good old time, or even from that of a very few seasons since. The drawing for places, the slow regular march up, and the beautifully even getting off, are as great a contrast as an improvement on the crowding and jostling, the slanging and quarrelling that too often characterised the half hour devoted to trying the tempers of horse and man. The grand point, then, in a race of any repute, or indeed of almost any quality, was the start; and the more superior a horse's real merits, the less likely his chance of having a fair one. Any

little failing he might be known or supposed to have was almost certain to be accommodated, and indeed it was no unusual thing for a horse to be purposely brought and kept at the post, till the favourite was deemed sufficiently worked on, or once right disadvantageously under weigh. Who that remembers Mameluke's race for the Leger, when both these measures were so effectively exercised, need look round for a better, or perhaps we should say a worse example? when with the tempers of both horse and rider (Chifney) entirely sacrificed, and the very worst "start" (if such it could be termed) of the whole field, the innate excellence of the first favourite yet ran so close a race home for it—a race that even then, had any other man but Robinson been pitted against him, he must have won. Another sad thing connected with this system beyond the mere act of starting, was the great uncertainty attending the whole race. No jockey knew before he was half-way through it whether they were really off or not, and scarcely a winner came back to scale without a dread of objection or claim for false start from some outsider or another who never wished for a fair one. We recollect seeing this said Mr. Sam Chifney, the year Amato rejoiced the hearts of the home party by winning the Derby, walking about for some half hour or more after that happy event, with Young Rowton on his arm, and waiting no doubt for the second heat. Nearly all the tricking and disgrace, in short, of the in actione part of a race was associated with the start; and for one horse who was denied fair play in ending his race, there were twenty we are confident who lacked it in the beginning. How different, how improved, how generally gratifying "the away" for a great stake now, we repeat, where they "stand upon the order of their going, and go at once ;" where jockeys look on the starter as something superior to the judge, instead of the almost nonentity they were wont to regard him as ; and where large fields are put in procession to the minute; and bade good speed at the moment we expected, or, rather, the powers had fixed for them! And to whom do we trace all this change from the fashion which allowed us once to see the five or six first offers off for the Derby, and then to canter leisurely across for a view of the race? To whom but the great and glorious Reformer we left a few minutes since in company with the Hero, repeating his pedigree-" by Sir Her cules, dam by Little John, out of Metree (as Tattersall calls her), by Waxy"- -as good a starter as a good judge, to whom, without permission, and without further ceremony, we beg leave most respectfully to dedicate this print.

Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle again. The staff have cleared the course; Mr. Clarke has wiped his spectacles; Mr. Hill has clasped his book, and a field of four are drawn out to represent the County Plate. The one on the off side there, the staring bald-face chesnut with the good forehandwhite with green sleeves and cap-is an Elis horse of Mr. Etwall's, that fame says can run a bit. The fidgetty grey here, setting up his back at Billy Day-before he became a bad boy-you see by the violet jacket sports the colours of Mr. Gully: while the meanish looking mealy chesnut, carrying the lad in dark blue and white sleeves, is something from the East Illsley district, so renowned for its good ground and bad horsessome forlorn hope of Pryse Pryse's, or new spec of Mr. Tom Parr's, or half-and-half investment of old King of Diamonds Stephens, about which