THE TURF. 
administered, and chafing the legs of his courser with 
train oil and brandy. On the other hand, if these 
worthies could be brought to life again, it would astonish 
them to hear that twelve months are now considered 
requisite to bring a race-horse quite at the top of his 
mark to the post. The objects of the training-groom 
can only be accomplished by medicine, which puri- 
fies the system, exercise, which increases muscular 
strength, and food, which produces vigour beyond 
what nature imparts. To this is added the necessary 
operation of periodical sweating, to remove the super- 
fluities of flesh and fat, which process is more or less 
necessary to all animals called upon to engage in cor- 
poreal exertions beyond their ordinary powers. With 
either a man or a horse, his skin is his complexion ; and 
whether it be the prize-fighter who strips in the ring, 
or the race-horse at the starting-post, that has been 
subjected to this treatment, a lustre of health is exhibited 
such as no other system can produce. 
The most difficult points in the trainer's art have 
only been called into practice since the introduction of 
one, two, and three-year-old stakes, never thought of in 
the days of Childers or Eclipse. Saving and excepting 
the treatment of doubtful legs, whatever else he has to 
do in his stable is comparatively trifling to the act of 
bringing a young one quite up to the mark, and keeping 
him there till he is wanted. The cock was sacred to 
^Esculapius by reason of his well-known watchfulness ; 
nor should the eye of a training-groom be shut whilst 
135 
