UPON TRAINERS. 219 



Shortly after the first recurrence of his birthday, the youngster 

 began to stretch himself out in the gallop as though he under- 

 stood the business for which he had come into the world. The 

 finest Scotch oats, imported to Newmarket from the Carse o' 

 Gowrie, and crushed before consumption, old hay (such as the 

 last Lord Wilton but one, or Mr. Stirling Crawfurd, would have 

 given to their hunters), mixed with carrots or vetches, ex- 

 panded the youngster's powers, assisted his growth, and tended 

 to convert him into a galloping machine. His handling when 

 broken, his early trials in the autumn, and the training to which 

 he was subjected throughout the winter, if wanted to run at 

 Lincoln or Northampton, had the natural effect of developing 

 in him a precocity at which John Scott and the trainers before 

 him had no notion of aiming. Such was the system by which 

 Joseph Dawson gained his reputation as a consummate artist 

 in the preparation of early two-year-olds, a system in which 

 Matthew Dawson and Thomas Jennings are equally proficient. 

 Critics who believe that the highest aim and object with 

 which the thoroughbred foal comes into the world is not that 

 he should be a superlative two-year-old, and should go out of 

 training at the end of his third year, have abounded in the 

 past, and will, we entertain no doubt, continue to abound in the 

 future. The three most noticeable members of this school 

 within the last thirty years w^ere Sir Charles Monck, of Belsay 

 Hall, Northumberland ; Mr. Thomas Parr, of Benhams, near 

 Wantage; and Mr. E. Phillips, of Bushbury, near Wolverhamp- 

 ton. Each of the three owned and bred a lot of good horses in 

 his time, and each was always ready to maintain his unalter- 

 able conviction that superior three-year-olds and stout mature 

 horses are more likely to be secured by scanty food, including 

 hardly any oats, by rough treatment, and plentiful exposure to 

 the elements in their youth, than by the forcing and pampering 

 system which goes to the creation of Brocklesby and Althorp 

 Park winners. ' I give them plenty of Belsay grass, hay, and 

 water, and nothing else,' exclaimed Sir Charles Monck to afriend 

 with whom he was inspecting the Belsay yearlings, among which 



