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their general treatment of the Horse, Hence it is most desirable, in 

 every useful ))oint of view, that sporting gentlemen should give them- 

 selves the trouble of acquiring a knowledge of the nature and manage- 

 ment of an animal in which they have so considerable a share in the 

 respects, both of pleasure and profit. It must surely be an enhanced 

 stratification, to be able to discover, through the medium of their own 

 mature judgment, the solid grounds of their success, or the probabiHty 

 oitlieir failure. A defect of such knowledge exposes them to a double 

 risk, from the ignorance and unfaithfulness of their servants, and too 

 often to the ridiculous and galling dilemma, of being almost compelled 

 to retain such as are insolent, or against whose characters there may be 

 well-founded suspicions. Allowing all the acuteness, which has been 

 indeed, with much reason, ascribed to grooms and jockies, there are 

 niceties in the business of the turf) to the comprehension of which, a 

 certain culture and expansion of the mind, are absolutely necessary. 

 Such qualifications are plainh^ requisite to elevate men above the dic- 

 tates of arbitrary and established customs. 



The accomplished six)rtsman then, must be well skilled in the con- 

 formation of the Racer, and the true and scientific method of preparing 

 him for the acme of his exertions, without injury to his bodily powers; 

 neither suffering any impediment to his wind, or his muscular action, 

 from too little exercise, nor risking the access of debility and stiffness of 

 the joints by too much ; rather, if a trifling error must be committed, 

 resolving, that it shall be on the former and safer side. It will not be an 

 easy, or very practical attempt in a servant, or in any man, to come across 

 a sporting gentleman thus skilled. The Horse of such a proprietor 

 will not be poisoned for his race, and he remain ignorant of the cause 

 of his misfortune. Nor will that miserable necessitj'^ exist, of a jockey 

 being obliged, for his reputation and his bread sake, to butcher and cut 

 np alive, a generous animal, to the rupture of his eye-strings and his 

 heart-strings, in order to achieve an impossibility. A critical judge of his 

 Horse's powers, knows to a length, what he is capable of performing, 

 and -when and where he is distressed ; and his common sense and gene- 

 rous feelings dictate to him, the utter inutility of abuse. 



Amongst those which may be deemed objects of reform, upon the 



turf; 



