200 SOLDIER AND SPORTSMAN 



studying men and horses. Shakespeare says, 

 "The proper study of mankind is man," and the 

 man in any business whatever must agree with 

 Shakespeare. There is no greater factor in suc- 

 cess than the successful selection of subordinates ; 

 a good staff is quite as important as a good head. 

 A trainer's job is not, as many people imagine it 

 to be, a matter of rule of thumb ; far from it. It 

 requires deep and original thought. 



No man, for instance, could ever become a 

 successful trainer by theory only. He should 

 make it his business to ascertain the character 

 of every individual employed by him and to find 

 out the peculiarities of every horse in the stable. 

 Apart from adopting practical methods, he should 

 have intuitive knowledge, a gift hard to define, 

 but of the first importance for a man who bets. 

 I believe Mr Gilpin had all these, and many other 

 qualifications, and that is why he has proved so 

 eminently successful. I can recall one instance of 

 mistake in judgment. Five weeks previous to 

 the Kempton Jubilee, Mr Gilpin being detained 

 in Ireland, I was left to look after and supervise, 

 according to instructions, the work of the various 

 horses. Sirenia was in the Jubilee with 8 st. 6 lb., 

 not by any means a weight that, had she been 

 fit, would have stopped her winning. But just 

 before Mr Gilpin left for Ireland she went 



