GREEN; YELLOW SLEEVES, BELT, AND CAP 



a sixth share of all the animals who carried the colours. 

 Mr. Lort-Phillips had trained and ridden with marked 

 success for a number of years prior to this. He is by 

 no means inclined to talk of his own achievements, but 

 I extracted from him the detail that before joining Mr. 

 Bibby he had sent out the winners of no fewer than 

 sixty-eight races, in many cases riding them himself, 

 though he is careful to add that the majority of them 

 were hunt races, many contested in Warwickshire when 

 he had the North Warwickshire Hounds. 



With regard to training, he is anxious that justice 

 should be done to his stud groom, Edward Thomas, 

 who has always been of the greatest assistance to him. 

 In a letter to me Colonel Lort-Phillips says : " Edward 

 Thomas is a native of these parts, and had never had 

 more to do with horses before he came to me than 

 looking after a hunter and a pony trap. I heard of his 

 ability from local farmers, and I would sooner have a 

 Pembrokeshire farmer's opinion of anything to do with 

 horses than that of almost anyone else. Thomas seemed 

 intuitively to understand an animal's capabilities ; 

 instinct raised him head and shoulders above any man 

 I ever knew, both in the stable and training ground. 

 But he was young when I first heard of him and without 

 experience, for which reasons I had the greatest difficulty 

 in persuading him to come to me. He rather wanted 

 to go as a porter on the Great Western Railway ! And 

 this little man in the course of the next six years trained 



34 



