156 RACING. 



she won the Cesare witch did but one two-mile gallop through- 

 out the whole of her preparation, which gallop so completely 

 upset her that the experiment was never repeated, and she 

 was thenceforth restricted to gallops across the Fiat, a mile and 

 a quarter, an indulgence which proved a sad stumbling-block 

 and rock of offence to some of her stable connections, who 

 would not back her for the long handicap, arguing with 

 apparent plausibility that a mare trained only over a mile and 

 a quarter could not be expected to win what is always a strong 

 run race over two miles and a quarter. Here came out the 

 knowledge of the stableman ; had Sherrard persevered on the 

 old lines, and continued the two-mile gallops for the sake of 

 custom and tradition, he would have ruined his mare, and 

 Chippendale would have won the Cesarewitch for the second 

 time ; in the end, as we know, the man of practice was right 

 and the theorists wrong. 



To give another instance from the same stable. Our John 

 had been engaged solely in leading two-year-olds five-furlong 

 work before he was sent to York to run in the Queen's Plate, 

 in which Victor Emmanuel, then in his best form, only just 

 beat him a head. Our John then passed into other hands, 

 when he was regularly trained for long races, yet he never 

 improved on that York performance, never, if we remember 

 rightly, was so good a horse. 



Hampton is another case in point. Though he won many 

 long-distance races, he was, we have good reason for believing, 

 never asked to do more than mile work during his preparation 

 for these events, and even less than a mile was sometimes con- 

 sidered sufficient ; yet when the pinch came he never failed to 

 stay home. 



The fact appears to be that staying is a natural gift, and 

 not one that can be engrafted, or an art that can be acquired 

 by a succession of long wearying gallops. Witness Martini, 

 perhaps one of the best sprinters we have had in England ; but 

 after he was sold to go abroad his new masters determined on 

 converting him into a stayer by the artificial method of gallop- 



