2o8 RACING. 



remarks, * Show me a better system and I shall be happy to 

 adopt it.' 



The second period upon which we have set ourselves to 

 discourse, extends from 1835 to i860, and includes William 

 Edwards (the son of James Edwards), John Scott, old Joha 

 Day, John Forth, Thomas Dawson, Thomas Parr, Fobert, 

 Thomas Taylor, the Dillys, Henry Wadlow, and the Kents. 

 At the beginning of this epoch there were but 210 two-year- 

 olds pulled out in the course of a twelvemonth, whereas in i860 

 no less than 608 animals of this aG;e faced the starter. Within 

 these twenty-five years, the three-year-olds, of which there were 

 nearly 400 in 1840 against 213 two-year-olds, sank in i860 

 below the two-year-olds, of which, in the latter year, there were 

 608 against 521 three-year-olds. The mischief had thus been 

 started of which, within our own time, it may be truly said : 



Hoc fonte derivata tabes 



In patriam populumque fluxit. 



We entertain no doubt that the excess of two-year-old racing 

 and of short handicaps has exercised a deteriorating effect 

 upon the noble animal all over the world, and that ' while ' — 

 in the words employed by General Peel before Lord Rosebery's 

 Committee — * as good horses are bred now as ever, there are 

 not so many of them relatively to the bad.' 



Nevertheless, between 1835 and i860, the forcing system 

 of training which has now been developed, and especially at 

 Newmarket, to the highest pitch of perfection, had hardly 

 commenced. Perhaps the three most typical trainers of the 

 era in question were John Scott, old John Day, and Thomas 

 Dawson. Whatever other differences there may have been be- 

 tween them, all three were of one mind in requiring a horse, 

 when about to run ' for the stuff,' to be in good condition, but 

 as to what good condition meant there was some diversity of 

 opinion between them. Almost without exception every animal, 

 of whatever age or sex, trained at Danebury by old John Day 

 was brought to the post light. There were horses under his 



