UPON TRAINERS. \cyj 



be found in the last generation than John Scott and John 

 Barham Day ; nor would it be easy to pronounce ofi'-hand 

 which upon the whole was the more successful of the two. 

 Both, however, had learnt all that they w-ere capable of acquiring 

 before two-year-old races and short handicaps had begun to 

 reduce all other contests upon the Turf to insignificance, and 

 if either the ' Wizard of the North ' or the founder of Dane- 

 bury had lived thirty years later, he would perhaps have found 

 it a losing game to compete with Matthew and Joseph Dawson 

 or with old Tom Jennings as trainers of early two-year-olds. 



Just about the time when John Scott, old John Day, and 

 Thomas Dawson were beginning their careers Robert Robson, 

 who was long spoken of as ' The Emperor of Trainers,' was 

 withdrawing from the profession which had brought him wealth 

 and honour in abundance. Seven Derby winners — Waxy, 

 Tyrant, Pope, Whalebone, Whisker, Azor, and Emilius — went 

 forth to victory at Epsom from Robson's stables at Lewes 

 and Newmarket between 1793 and 1823, and none of the 

 seven ever started for a two-year-old race. It goes, there- 

 fore, without saying that in the preparation of competitors 

 for two-year-old spins, and for short handicaps, Robert Rob- 

 son and his contemporaries were not ' in it ' with their modern 

 successors. 'Practice makes perfect,' and in the days when 

 great racehorses like Plenipotentiary and Bay JNliddleton 

 rarely faced the starter until the Craven meeting of their third 

 year, it could not be expected that trainers should be adepts at 

 getting two-year-olds ready for engagements in March and April. 

 On the other hand, the old school of owners and trainers would 

 never have consented to ruin a big colt like Wild Oats, or a 

 slashing filly like St. Helena, by training them for races calcu- 

 lated to tax their powers prematurely with the result attributed 

 in French phrase to men who are resolved at all hazards 

 * manger leiir hie en herhe,^ 



Having made these few initial remarks, we shall proceed to 

 show what strides in advance the art of early training has made 

 since James Edwards, William Chifney, Robert Robson, James 



