UPON TRAINERS. nw 



Training,* that John Scott tickled the public taste by making 

 believe that horses ran best when fat. ' In reality, the horses 

 which he ran big were those that were bad. His good horses 

 he took care to run light, as other experienced trainers did.' 

 William Day adds that the lightest two-year-old he ever saw 

 run was Dervish at Epsom, and the lightest three-year-old West 

 Australian at Doncaster. But he forgets that against these two 

 instances may be set a host of others, in which horses trained at 

 Whitewall ran big, and won great races. There are few now 

 living who witnessed and can recall Satirist's St. Leger in 1841. 

 Yet it is notorious that Lord Westminster's colt was at least a 

 stone worse than Coronation, whom he beat by superior con- 

 dition : that condition did not prevent his coming big to the 

 post — a requirement which the Marquis of Westminster exacted 

 from his trainer in regard to all the Eaton horses. One of the 

 finest manifestations of John Scott's judgment was displayed in 

 connection with Mr. G. Watts's Irish colt, The Baron, who was 

 beaten in 1845 for the Liverpool St. Leger, and with whom 

 John Scott undertook to win the Doncaster St. Leger about 

 seven weeks later, if the horse were sent to Whitewall. That 

 promise was faitli fully carried out ; and when The Baron won 

 the St. Leger, and again when he won the Cesarewitch, he was 

 pronounced by the great Sir Tatton Sykes to be fit to carry a 

 heavy man out hunting. Again, the condition of Lord Derby's 

 Canezou, when she ran second, after a desperate race, to Lord 

 Clifton's Surplice for the St. Leger of 1848, left nothing to be 

 desired on the score of bigness. The fact is that, trained light, 

 Canezou could not beat a hack. Finally, no animal ever came 

 to the post in more superb fettle than Newminster, when he 

 won the St. Leger of 1851, and, being the most delicate of 

 horses, he required very gentle and judicious handling. There 

 were undoubtedly some legitimate grounds for censuring the 

 administration of John Scott's stable, upon which we need not 

 touch ; but in his diagnosis of the animal entrusted to his 

 charge, no trainer ever had a clearer vision than the ' Wizard 

 of the North.' His preparation of three-year-olds and of old 



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