Racing leads to the shroff quicker than anything else. But if you have no
conscience and no sentiments, and good hands, and some knowledge of pace, and
ten years' experience of horses, and several thousand rupees a month, I
believe that you can occasionally contrive to pay your shoeing- bills.
Did you ever know Shackles--b. w. g., 15.13.8--coarse, loose, mule-like ears--
barrel as long as a gate-post--tough as a telegraph-wire--and the queerest
brute that ever looked through a bridle? He was of no brand, being one of an
ear-nicked mob taken into the Bucephalus at 4l.-10s. a head to make up
freight, and sold raw and out of condition at Calcutta for Rs. 275. People who
lost money on him called him a "brumby;" but if ever any horse had Harpoon's
shoulders and The Gin's temper, Shackles was that horse. Two miles was his own
particular distance. He trained himself, ran himself, and rode himself; and,
if his jockey insulted him by giving him hints, he shut up at once and bucked
the boy off. He objected to dictation. Two or three of his owners did not
understand this, and lost money in consequence. At last he was bought by a man
who discovered that, if a race was to be won, Shackles, and Shackles only,
would win it in his own way, so long as his jockey sat still.
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