UPON TRAINERS. 217 



Vindex, by Touchstone out of Garland the winner of the 

 Champagne Stakes in 1852, and as fine a colt as ever looked 

 through a bridle was included. Thomas Parr maintained that 

 to the Spartan discipline, the ice-cold stables, the one light rug 

 over their loins in the depth of winter, and the scanty feeds of 

 oats with which he regaled the appetites of his horses, were due 

 the successes of Fisherman and Rataplan, of Weathergage, 

 Mortimer and Saucebox. To a still higher degree, however, 

 than the other two, Mr. Phillips of Bushbury carried the 

 starving regime to which he attributed the birth in his paddocks 

 of Truth (by the Libel), who won the Cambridgeshire in 1851, 

 of Gunboat, Lifeboat and Kohinoor. Among the freaks and 

 vagaries of the ' Stud Book ' that storehouse so suggestive of 

 endless thought and study to those who are capable of digesting 

 it aright nothing is more curious than the history of Sir Her- 

 cules, by Whalebone out of Peri one of the most celebrated 

 stallions ever reared in these islands. Sir Hercules was born in 

 1826 and died in 1855. Three or four years before his death 

 he became the property of Mr. Phillips for a few sovereigns. 

 When he reached Bushbury the gallant old horse was a bag of 

 bones. Under the judicious care of Mr. Phillips he soon revived, 

 and from the first mare mated with him, when he was twenty- 

 seven years old, sprang Gemma di Vergy. In the same year 

 (1853) Sir Hercules got Gunboat, in 1854 Lifeboat, and in 1855 

 Topsail all of them being from the same mare, Yard Arm by 

 Sheet Anchor. 



We have perhaps said enough to indicate our conviction 

 that in the management of big three-year-olds and four-year- 

 olds, it would be hard for any modern trainer to teach much to 

 Robson, Edwards, Croft, the Days, John Scott, the Kents, or 

 Tom Dawson. It is, however, equally certain that the best 

 living professors of the art of preparing horses for their engage- 

 ments have made enormous strides in advance of their prede- 

 cessors as regards the rapid development of two-year-olds, and 

 the faculty of bringing them out to run frequently in public. 

 We must not omit to notice that, in transporting his horses 



