206 MR. SW IX DELL 



remained with me to the day of his death. He was in 

 many things a pattern to racing-men, worthy of imitation; 

 for he never, in my experience at least, asked the trainer, 

 or anyone else connected with the stable, a word about 

 other people's horses at an improper time, or until the 

 morning of the race. Indeed, he seldom wanted to know 

 anything of his own much earlier. He never arranged 

 the weights of a trial (though he suggested, as I have 

 related, that Bevis should receive a stone from Minotaur) 

 or saw one ; nor did he ever see a horse of his own or of 

 anyone else in my stable during the many years I trained 

 for him, though often asked to do so. He used to say, 

 ' What can I know more after than before I have seen 

 him ?' Carrying out the same principle, however strange 

 it may appear, he never saw any of his own horses at any 

 place where they might be for the purpose of running, in 

 the stable ; nor did he see one on the heath, except when 

 racing, and then only in, or after, the race. And he cer- 

 tainly never saw one whilst saddling, nor his jockey 

 weighed in or out, nor spoke to him before a race. All 

 this he wisely left to his trainer. 



He was by no means fond of personally taking stock of 

 the horses in their gallops before any great race ; nor 

 would he see his own take exercise, although he may 

 have had the first favourite. This was the case with 

 Weatherbound for the Cambridgeshire, although his 

 lodgings were close by, and he usually took his constitu- 

 tional before breakfast. For this purpose he took the 

 road by the Windmill, so as to preclude the possibility of 

 his doing such a thing. Yet few men knew more of the 

 condition of the greater part of the horses than himself, 

 or the intentions of their several owners. One morning, 

 on my returning from the racecourse side of the heath 

 with the horses on their way to the stable, whilst passing 



