228 TRAINERS WITHOUT TRAINING 



Cambridgeshire winners, unless it be that the former, like 

 most of its predecessors, had plenty to do, though the 

 work must have been injudiciously administered. He won 

 the traditional 15 in two heats, and, as no one dared 

 oppose him, cantered over for the Queen's Plate the 

 same day. His platers were too numerous to mention ; 

 it must suffice to say that though they won many races, 

 they could not as a whole have proved financial suc- 

 cesses. 



I have, I think, plainly shown in my description of the 

 horses and their eccentricities of running that something 

 must have been wrong in their preparation. This might 

 easily arise, if in no other way, from the continued 

 absence of the master from home. No matter what 

 races he had his horses engaged in, nothing would keep 

 him from personally attending a selling meeting with his 

 platers, to the injury of the horses he left behind him. 

 He did not, in short, err so much in mistaking the merits 

 of his horses as in not properly preparing them, as shown 

 in the case of Fisherman, Saucebox, and Mortimer. Nor 

 was it that he worked them too little, but that he did so 

 injudiciously at improper times. He would most impru- 

 dently run the best horse in the world over any course, 

 even the worst, any distance for 20, even though the 

 unfortunate animal had on the same day, or the day be- 

 fore, won him 2,000, and was engaged in a similar 

 valuable contest on the next. He would run if he had 

 the chance every day of the week, and travelled on 

 Sundays in readiness for a race, at any distance, on 

 Monday. Training under such circumstances was out 

 of the question, nor do I think he ever studied it much 

 under any other. 



A succession of good luck now brought him many 

 friends and much gain. Unfortunately he could never 



