UPON TRAINERS. 217 



had any ill effect upon his performances later in life. For 

 better or for worse, it seems to be an inexorable law that 

 well over one thousand two-year-olds should now be stripped 

 in public during the course of each successive twelvemonth, 

 and, such being the case, no nation in the world can compare 

 with ours in the skill of the trainers who handle and bring again 

 and again to the post young and delicate racehorses, which, 

 in the words employed by Edmund Burke in a very different 

 connection, 'are still in the gristle, and not yet hardened into 

 the bone of maturity.' The method seems to answer, in that it 

 sheds increased lustre upon the Turf by the excellence of the 

 two-year-olds which it brings to the post. For many years 

 there has not been such a batch of good youngsters seen in public 

 as Minting, Ormonde, Saraband, The Bard, Philosophy, Bread- 

 Knife, Braw Lass, Kendal, Modwena, Gay Hermit, Travancore, 

 Mephisto, Volta, Miss Jummy, The Devil to Pay, Jacobite, Ste. 

 Alvere, Deuce of Clubs, and Prince lo. Had it been possible 

 that a race between this lot could take place for the Two 

 Thousand Guineas or Derby, it would have pleaded trumpet- 

 tongued for the style of Turf management which could produce 

 a contest invested with so thrilling an interest. The old school 

 of trainers would have been powerless to do full justice to the 

 host of fine upstanding two-year-olds which went into winter 

 quarters after the season of 1885. It remains for us at present 

 to describe in a few words the arts and appliances by which 

 animals not yet twerty-four months old are able to wear the 

 appearance of mature hunters presented by Minting, Ormonde, 

 Saraband, Kendal, and Gay Hermit. 



Of the forcing system now applied to stallions, brood-mares, 

 foals, and yearlings, there were no two better exponents than 

 the late Joseph Dawson and the late William Blenkiron. As 

 regards his stallions, the latter exacted from them as much 

 slow exercise as a first-class rider across country imposes upon 

 his hunters in the months of September and October. Resi- 

 dents in the neighbourhood of Eltham were familiar with the 

 spectacle of Blair Athol, Gladiateur, Marsyas, Breadalbane, 



