“A splendid stepper, too,” exclaimed Walter admiringly, as the beautiful creature paced slowly round the straw-yard, with arching neck and distended nostrils, as though he were aware of the trainer's depreciating remarks, and could afford to despise them.
“That's true,” rejoined Mr Chifney drily; “but we don't want steppers, but goers; there's a vast of steppers in this world, both men and horses.--Now, in that box yonder, there is an animal who, in my opinion, could give _Blue Ruin_ ten pounds; but you shall judge for yourself presently. _The King's_ palace is this next one.”
And truly, scarce could horse be better housed than was his equine majesty. No light-house could be more exquisitely clean; no drawing-room in Mayfair more neat, or better suited to the requirements of its inhabitant, although of ornament, save the plaited straw that fringed the royal couch, there was nothing. A dim religious light pervaded this sanctuary, which was kept at a moderate temperature by artificial means, while an admirable ventilation prevented the slightest “smell of the stable” from being perceptible. The object of all this consideration was a magnificent bay horse, by rule of Liliput, very fitly named _The King_, since, if not a head taller than his fellows, he was fully “a hand.” His coat quite shone amid the gloom, and as the key turned in the door, he pricked his long fine ears, and turned his full eyes upon his two visitors inquiringly, with far more expression in his lean-jawed face than is possessed by many a human creature.
“This gives the world assurance of a horse indeed,” muttered Walter to himself as he contemplated this wonder. “Shew me his faults, Mr Chifney, for his excellences dazzle me.”
“Well, sir,” whispered the trainer, looking up towards a square hole in the ceiling, “it is not for me to depreciate 'the crack;' and there's a boy up yonder--for the horse is never left for a moment, night or day--who is getting too sharp to live, at least in my stables. But look at what he stands on.”
Most men who ride think it a disgrace not to know all about a horse. Every man who keeps a pony thinks himself qualified to “pick” out the winner from any number of thoroughbreds before “the start;” and when the race is over, protests that he _had_ picked him out in his own mind, only something (not quite satisfactorily explained) made him distrust his own judgment, and back a loser.