TREATMENT OF YEARLINGS. 



127 



early or as late as he or his dam may arrange between them, 

 and if he chooses to anticipate matters by appearing at 1 1.30 P.M. 

 on December 31, he strikes one as the clock strikes twelve on 

 that night ; in other words, he is to all intents and purposes 

 born a yearling, which practically means that he is useless for 

 racing purposes. This, however, is an extreme and exceptional 

 case, and born as he usually is in the first four months of the 

 year, he becomes a yearling on the following New Year's Day, 



Driven with a pair of 

 long reins. 



a two-year-old on the one next succeeding, and it is at this age 

 that for good or for ill his racing career may be said to 

 begin, as, health permitting, he will surely be subjected to 

 some sort of competitive examination. 



It is not our purpose here to inquire whether the early 

 maturity necessitated by the training of two-year-olds for their 

 engagements in March and April is or is not prejudicial to the 

 prolongation of their turf career doctors differ on this as on 

 most other points. Suffice it to say that, through the influence 

 mainly of Sir Joseph Hawley, the experiment of prohibiting 

 two-year-old racing in England before May i has been tried 



