TRAINERS AND JOCKEYS. 31 



news of an important trial is sent by telegraph to the 

 owner, to disgest with his breakfast, and any change 

 in a horse's health is often communicated in this 

 way without waiting for the post. To show the im- 

 portance of it, an owner once wrote to his Tattersall's 

 commissioner to back his horse for him, and received 

 as his reply that he had not done so, as he had posi- 

 tive information that it was amiss, and had been so 

 for three or four days. The trainer was called upon 

 for an explanation, and it turned out that he had 

 sent an announcement of the fact by letter, which 

 had followed its owner from place to place, but still 

 the non-telegraphing was considered an omission, 

 and the horse soon after changed quarters. There 

 is a wide difference in the talent of different trainers 

 for " getting a line," and some few are perpetually 

 leading owners on to the white ice by their over- 

 confidence in judging of trials. It is, however, seldom 

 that a trainer and an owner differ very much on an 

 animal's merits ; and the pretty recent defeat of a 

 Derby favourite goes far to prove that both ought to 

 bow to the opinion of the jockey, if he has ridden the 

 animal in all his two-year-old races, and deliberately 

 installed him amongst the order of the " White 

 Feathers." We remember once askiug a jockey's 

 opinion about two Derby horses in a stable for 

 which, of course, he did not ride, and he simply re- 

 plied that " one is a race-horse and the other's a pig' 1 

 And yet strange to say, the trainer stuck to the " pig" 

 to the last, and the owner had to pay very dearly for 

 the fancy. Trainers have, however, their triumphs 

 in turn, and especially in one instance, where a noble- 

 man was so incredulous about his mare's merits, that 

 nothing could induce him to match her, although 

 the trainer invariably clenched his arguments by say- 

 ing that he would gladly back her for his year's 

 salary. At length his lordship came to his stables 

 one morning, and said that he had matched his mare 



