204 RACING. 



the object of terror it had long been. While the Chifneys were 

 persistently inflicting upon their Derby horses eight- mile sweats 

 two or three times a week, Robson won the great Epsom race 

 in 1823 with Emilius, to whom he never gave a sweat at all, 

 and it was a saying often on Frank Buckle's lips that in the 

 preparation of a delicate horse Robson was seven pounds ahead 

 of any other trainer. 



It may, in fact, be fairly doubted whether Matthew Dawson, 

 John Porter, Thomas Wadlow, or any other living trainer is 

 superior to Robert Robson, or to his contemporary James or 

 * Tiny ' Edwards, in the preparation of three-year-old horses 

 and upwards for their engagements.^ It was said of James 

 Edwards, whose chief patrons were the fifth Earl of Jersey and 

 Sir John Shelley, that ' he particularly shone in training Derby 

 horses,' and Mr. J. C. Whyte extols him above all his fellows, 

 as ' having acquired the enviable and difficult science of bring- 

 ing his horse into a condition sufficient not merely to win one 

 race but many.' There never was a more fiery and hot- 

 tempered animal, and one more difficult to subdue, than Lord 

 Jersey's Bay Middleton, the last Derby winner that ' Tiny * 

 Edwards ever had in his hands. Turning for one moment from 

 the art of training to that of soldiership, we may remark that 

 in General von Miiffling's ' Memoir of the Campaigns of 18 13, 

 1 8 14, and 18 15,' there is a striking passage which details a con- 

 versation in w^hich Napoleon the Great for once did justice to his 

 English rival, for w^hom it was well known that he habitually 



1 In this connection we may perhaps be permitted to quote the following 

 passage from a letter recently written by Matthew Dawson : — ' I do not think the 

 best trainers of to-day are superior, if equal, to Robson, Tiny Edwards, or John 

 Scott in the preparation of thiee-year-olds and upwards. The younger horses, 

 owing, I believe, to a better system of rearing and of paddock treatment, are 

 more forward and come sooner to hand as yearlings than they did in former 

 days, which, added to a better and more gentle method of training, enables ths 

 trainers of to-day to run their two-year-olds earlier, more frequently, and with 

 more precision than they did thirty or forty years ago, and, I may add, with 

 less harm to the animals. How often do we now see two-year-olds run through 

 a season, and winding up, in some cases, by beating the speediest old horses 

 at weight for age in the Houghton Meeting, and coming out in the followincf 

 spring with fire and stamina quite unimpaired ! ' 



