Any way you look at it, Indian racing is
immoral, and expensively immoral. Which is much worse. If a man
wants your money, he ought to ask for it, or send round a
subscription-list, instead of juggling about the country, with an
Australian larrikin; a "brumby," with as much breed as the boy; a
brace of chumars in gold-laced caps; three or four ekka-ponies with
hogged manes, and a switch-tailed demirep of a mare called Arab
because she has a kink in her flag. 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.
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