22-2, RACING. 



secrecy which long ago won him the favour of the first Lord 

 Wilton, and of that superlative judge of racing, Colonel Henry 

 Forester. 



Finally, there is one trainer — the doyen of his profession— 

 who, though he not long since meditated retirement, still follows 

 the profession in which he has won honour and renown. It is 

 now more than half a century since Matthew Dawson accom- 

 panied Lord Kelburn's Pathfinder from Gulhane in Scotland to 

 Epsom, where the colt ran unplaced for the Derby of 1840. 

 From that day to this the same experienced trainer has been 

 actively and laboriously engaged in the pursuit of a profession 

 which has brought him abundant laurels, and crowned him with 

 as many triumphs as ever fell to any of his predecessors or con- 

 temporaries. To enumerate the winners of the Derby, Oaks, St. 

 Leger, Two Thousand, One Thousand, and of a hundred other 

 races — winners which have come forth from Matthew Dawson's 

 stables at Middleham, Russley, and Newmarket — were equi- 

 valent, in Virgil's phrase, 'to counting the waves which beat on 

 the Libyan shore.' The last year of his career at Heath House 

 witnessed, perhaps, the proudest of Matthew Dawson's many 

 triumphs. With Melton, despite the horse's bowed sinew, he 

 carried off the Derby and St. Leger ; with Minting, one of the 

 biggest and heaviest two-year-olds that ever ran, he achieved 

 five victories without once experiencing the bitterness of 

 defeat. As Sir Joshua Reynolds, lecturing for the last time at 

 the Royal Academy, desired that the final words syllabled by 

 his lips in that place should be 'the immortal name of Michael 

 Angelo,' so we cannot end this necessarily brief and imperfect 

 disquisition upon trainers more appropriately than by recom- 

 mending future votaries of that arduous craft to emulate the 

 unblemished integrity, the strict attention to duty, and the 

 large-hearted sympathy which have won world-wide fame for 

 Matthew Dawson. 



Since these pages were first published Percy Peck, a son of 

 Robert Peck, has made his mark, as have a couple of private 

 trainers, Pickering and Blackwell. 



