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CHAPTER VII. 



RACING SERVANTS : OLD STYLE AND NEW. 



Many racing men there are still living, and actively engaged in 

 their favourite pursuit, who can remember the old school of 

 trainers and jockeys : the former simply training grooms, the 

 latter for the most part lads who had lived with them, and in 

 their service obtained proficiency if not fame. Few of either 

 class betted to any extent, or owned horses at all. They were 

 employed at fixed salaries by the gentlemen who patronised 

 the turf. Almost the first great public trainer on a large scale 

 was John Scott, who, beginning with a select cote^-ie^ ended 

 with a somewhat heterogeneous assortment of employers. 



But the change from the private to the public trainer was 

 in the course of events inevitable. As wealth largely increased 

 and became more widely diffused ; as the sharp distinctions of 

 class became gradually obliterated, the turf year by year 

 attracted more votaries : some for the love of sport, others 

 from hope of gain, and many because it was the fashion, and 

 furnished an introduction to society which might otherwise 

 have been unattainable. A large proportion of the new- 

 comers were of course ignorant even of the rudiments of racing 

 lore, and were fain to place themselves under the wing, and in 

 the stables, of those well acquainted with its intricacies. 



And so, fast disappearing from amongst us, is the old- 

 fashioned groom who dwelt in remote corners of the downs 

 and wolds ; who tended in his barn-hke boxes the fifteen or 

 twenty horses belonging to his master and that individual's 

 intimate friends ; who bought his forage exclusively from the 



H 



