UPON TRAINERS. 213 



trainer, who certainly was not ' rocked in the cradle of luxury ; ' 

 nor was he of the same type as some of his modern successors. 

 John Kent and his contemporaries belonged to a very dif- 

 ferent school, and the labours which he ordinarily endured 

 were greatly augmented when Lord George was at Goodwood. 

 Upon those occasions John Kent, after passing the whole day 

 with his exacting master, was frequently sent for after dinner, 

 and kept up until i or 2 o'clock A.M. Whenever Kent went 

 to London, Lord George's positive orders were that he should 

 report himself at Harcourt House, Cavendish Square, be the 

 hour of his arrival what it might. . 



Sometimes (he adds) I was engaged trying a few horses, and 

 exercising others at 3 P.M., when I would set out for London. 

 Upon arriving, I used to go to White's Club, in St. James' Street, 

 where his Lordship dined, generally about midnight. He would 

 talk to me the whole time at dinner, and for some time after, and 

 would then order a cab and drive with me to Harcourt House, where 

 he kept me talking till three, four, or even five o'clock in the morning. 

 I then had to leave London by the first train, and frequently had 

 only time to wash and eat breakfast, which his Lordship ordered 

 for me. I verily believe that if I could have fancied fried sove- 

 reigns I should have had them at his table. There was, in fact, 

 no limit to his Lordship's thoughtfulness and kindness. For such 

 a noble and generous master I felt I could never do enough. If 

 supported by energy, zeal, and fidelity, his Lordship would provide 

 means to any extent. 



We come now to the last act in our little drama, which 

 essays within a few brief pages to sketch the outlines of an art 

 which has been in vogue ever since Gervase Markham pub- 

 lished his quaint old book in 1599, and even from a still earlier 

 date. Between 1860 and 1885 the exhaustive system of dis- 

 counting the prowess of a three-year-old by running him ten, 

 twelve, or perhaps twenty times as a two-year-old, has estab- 

 lished itself so firmly as to forbid its eradication in the years to 

 come. We have no objection to the early and repeated starting 

 of small and compact two-year-olds, and it is of course possible 

 that the totally unparalleled victories of The Bard in 1885 



