Symptoms of Restiveness

The scholar Joseph Grego describes this subject in detail, with a good deal of dry humor: "Henry Bunbury...was remarkably fond of drawing disasters in the saddle; his brother, the respected Sir Charle Bunbury, was, for many years, president of the Jockey Club, in which difficult position he rigorously upheld the integrity of the turf... and [Henry] must have had "a good eye for a horse. The "Symptoms of Restiveness" are of a somewhat marked and unmistakable character: while one sportsman's steed is kneeling down on his forelegs and turning the huntsman heels over head, another cavalier's animal is standing rigidly on his forelegs, and perseveringly attempting to dislodge his mount by kicking out wildly behind. A third rider is no less fortunate in his hack, which has "no mouth." and is moreover a "bolter"; the animal is steadily plunging through everything in its way, apparently unconscious of the desperate efforts his master is making to hold him in. An old woman, with her barrow and its contents, are tumbled over, without attracting the attention of the wrong-headed brute, whose mind is absorbed in his own private speculations."