"Horse-race" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that they never left his house, but played the strangest tricks and maddest pranks imaginable, so that his house was like nothing more than a Noah's Ark.' He was a bold rider, it seems; for with one of his racers, ridden by himself, he bore away the prize in that wild horse-race they run upon the Piazza at Siena. For the rest, 'he attired himself in pompous clothes, wearing doublets of brocade, cloaks trimmed with gold lace, gorgeous caps, neck-chains, and other vanities of a like description, fit for buffoons and mountebanks.' In one of the frescoes of Monte ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... long before initiated in the English games and diversions, had been engaged in a horse-race, in which he was indeed unsuccessful; but he had the satisfaction of being convinced by experience, that an English horse can go twenty miles upon the high road in less than an hour. He was more fortunate at cock-fighting; and in ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... was given to gambling, and the constant companion of gamblers. To this accusation in some part my heart, with feeling penitence, pleads guilty. I have gambled; I have been a gambler, but not for the last three years. During that time I have not attended or betted upon a horse-race, or a fight, or any public exhibition of that nature. If I have erred in these things, half of the nobility of the land have been my examples; some of the most enlightened statesmen of the country have been my ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... Scotland, Ireland, Flanders, and I don't know where, that you could never enjoy Park-place! Now you have a whole summer to yourself, and you are as junkettaceous as my Lady Northumberland. Pray, what horse-race do you go to next? For my part, I can't afford to lead such a life: I have Conway-papers to sort; I have lives of the painters to write; I have my prints to paste, my house to build, and every thing in the world ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built." [1] Such is the outlook on human life of a frank and thoroughgoing irreligion, and there is nothing exhilarating about it. All progress possible in such a setting is a good deal like a horse-race staged in a theatre, where the horses do indeed run furiously, but where we all know well that they are not getting anywhere. There is a moving floor beneath them, and it is only the shifting of the scenery that makes them seem to go. Is human history ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... Congress of Kings, then Baden-Baden would resemble Washington. Presidents, Senators, Honorables, Judges, Generals, Commodores, Governors, and the Ex's of all these, congregate here as thick as pick-pockets at a horse-race or women at a wedding in church. Add Ambassadors, Plenipotentiaries, Lords, Counts, Barons, Chevaliers, the great and small fry of the Legations, Captains, Lieutenants, Claim-Agents, Negroes, Perpetual-Motion-Men, Fire-Eaters, Irishmen, Plug-Uglies, Hoosiers, Gamblers, Californians, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... legs or four, is in high estimation among the Siamese. Their public festivals, however solemn, are usually begun with races, which they cultivate with ardor and enjoy with enthusiasm. They have the foot-race, the horse-race, and the chariot-race. In the first, the runners, having drawn lots for places, range themselves across the course, and, while waiting for the starting signal, excite themselves by leaping. At the word "Go," they make play with astonishing ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... a trip to New Orleans went to see his first horse-race. He was feeling very reckless, and decided to risk one dollar, choosing a forty-to-one shot, as that looked like the largest percentage of gain. By a miracle his horse won, and upon handing his ticket to the bookmaker, he ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... uncommon lucky; he most always come out winner. He was always ready and laying for a chance; there couldn't be no solit'ry thing mentioned but that feller'd offer to bet on it, and take any side you please, as I was just telling you. If there was a horse-race, you'd find him flush or you'd find him busted at the end of it; if there was a dog-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a cat-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a chicken-fight, he'd bet on it; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... tried, convicted, and one was sentenced to imprisonment in the penitentiary, while the other two were condemned to be hung. Fortunately for one of the culprits, named Wilson, he had some years previously, at a horse-race near Nashville, Tennessee, privately advised General Jackson to withdraw his bets on a horse which he was backing, as the jockey had been ordered to lose the race. The General was very thankful for ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... fourth-story window in Maine; in Connecticut, a wife, by mistake, got into the same railway train with another woman's husband; a child fell into a well in New Jersey; there is a column about a peripatetic horse-race, which exhibits, like a circus, from city to city; a laborer in a remote town in Pennsylvania had a sunstroke; there is an edifying dying speech of a murderer, the love-letter of a suicide, the set-to of a couple of congressmen; and there are columns ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... found them also remarkable for their desultory and reckless habits. Though their crops were rotting in the fields from excessive wet, and every moment of sunshine should be taken advantage of, yet if there was a market, a fair, or a funeral, a horse-race, a fight, or a wedding, forgetting everything else, they would hurry off to the scene of excitement. Working for wages was rare and uncertain, and hence arose a disregard of the value of time, a desultory, ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... from the chungke-stone which it was designed in falling to touch. This fine cast counted one point in the game, which is of eleven points, and the Indian braves among the spectators howled like civilized young men at a horse-race. ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... and Moulsey Hurst, and which will be considered by our descendants with as much veneration as the Olympian and Isthmian contests by classical students of the present time. In the combat of the cestus, Shaw, the lifeguardsman, vanquishes the Prince of Orange, and obtains a bull as a prize. In the horse-race, the Duke of Wellington and Lord Uxbridge ride against each other; the Duke is victorious, and is rewarded with twelve opera-girls. On the last day of the festivities, a splendid dance takes place, at which all the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay |
