ride! that first ride!--most truly it was an epoch in my
existence; and I still look back to it with feelings of longing and
regret. People may talk of first love--it is a very agreeable event, I
dare say--but give me the flush, and triumph, and glorious sweat of a
first ride, like mine on the mighty cob! My whole frame was shaken, it
is true; and during one long week I could hardly move foot or hand; but
what of that? By that one trial I had become free, as I may say, of the
whole equine species. No more fatigue, no more stiffness of joints,
after that first ride round the Devil's Hill on the cob.

Oh, that cob! that Irish cob!--may the sod lie lightly over the bones of
the strongest, speediest, and most gallant of its kind! Oh! the days
when, issuing from the barrack-gate of Templemore, we commenced our hurry-
skurry just as inclination led--now across the fields--direct over stone
walls and running brooks--mere pastime for the cob!--sometimes along the
road to Thurles and Holy Cross, even to distant Cahir!--what was distance
to the cob?

It was thus that the passion for the equine race was first awakened
within me--a passion which, up to the present time, has been rather on
the increase than diminishing. It is no blind passion; the horse being a
noble and generous creature, intended by the All-Wise to be the helper
and friend of man, to whom he stands next in the order of creation. On
many occasions of my life I have been much indebted to the horse, and
have found in him a friend and coadjutor, when human help and sympathy
were not to be obtained. It is therefore natural enough that I should
love the horse; but the love which I entertain for him has always been
blended with respect; for I soon perceived that, though disposed to be
the friend and helper of man, he is by no means inclined to be his slave;
in which respect he differs from the dog, who will crouch when beaten;
whereas the horse spurns, for he is aware of his own worth, and that he
carries death within the horn of his heel. If, therefore, I found it
easy to love the horse, I found it equally natural to respect him.

* * * * *

Of one thing I am certain, that the reader must be much delighted with
the wholesome smell of the stable, with which many of these pages are
redolent; what a contrast to the sickly odours exhaled from those of some
of my contemporaries, especially of those who pretend to be of the highly
fashionable class, and who treat