24 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. 



seven 'Derby winners, including Waxy, Whalebone, 

 Whisker, and Emilius, back to scale, besides ten Oaks 

 winners. He was considered so facile prmceps in 

 his art, that his example was not only potent enough 

 to alter the barbarous training-hours at Newmarket, 

 but also to shame not a few out of the " perpetual 

 motion" system to which their charges had hitherto 

 been doomed. His father, who trained Highflyer, 

 came originally from the North to the Valley, or 

 rather Eight-mile Bottom (now sacred to University 

 hack-races), where he trained for the Duke of Bed- 

 ford, Mr. Shafto, &c., until the offer of a large salary 

 induced him to become a private trainer at Kingston 

 House, Newmarket, at which place he died in 1797. 

 Robson, who had been up to that date training for 

 Sir F. Poole at Lewes, then took to the business, 

 and made sixty thousand pounds out of it. Between 

 1828-38 he lived at Exning; but he loved Kingston 

 House best, and the last six months of his life were 

 spent there. 



Training is no longer the occult science it was 

 considered when Robson's word was law, and Tiny 

 Edward's horses could " be known in a crowd ;" and 

 jockey-lads, when their too solid flesh refuses to melt 

 below 8st. 71bs., bring their horses quite as " fit " to 

 the post as the oldest trainers. " The DukeV mode 

 of keeping his cavalry horses in form, was to allot 

 them two hours a day for doing six miles out and in 

 from Brussels, eight miles of which was done at a 

 sharp trot, and the rest in a walk ; and even with 

 seven out of ten racers, it is almost equally plain 

 sailing; but when a delicate-constitutioned one comes 

 to hand, mere routine fails, and the union of great 

 care, experience, and mind (we use the word ad- 

 visedly) can alone bring him fit to the post. Still, 

 as a general rule, talent among the clever trainers is 

 very equal, and it rarely happens that when one of 

 them has failed to make a horse run, things are 



