THE TURF. 
to is, not to hurry them in their work. As to resting them 
for many weeks at a time, as was formerly the case, that 
practice is now entirely exploded amongst all superior 
judges ; and experience has proved, that not only the 
race-horse, but the hunter, is best for being kept going 
the year round at times, gently, of course. With each, 
as with man, idleness is the parent of misfortune . 
Thucydides says of Themistocles, that he was a 
good guesser of the future by the past ; but this will 
not do in racing ; and not only prudence, but justice 
towards the public demands that a race-horse should be 
tried at different periods of his training. The first 
great point is obviously to ascertain the maximum 
speed, and the next to discover how that is affected by 
weight : but here there are difficulties against which 
no judgment can provide, and which, when the best 
intentions have been acted 'upon, have led to false 
conclusions. The horse may not be quite up to his 
mark, on the day of trial or the horse, or horses, with 
which he is tried, may not be so : the nature of the 
ground, and the manner of running it, may likewise not 
be suited to his capabilities or his action, and the trial 
and his race may be very differently run. The late 
Chifney, in his " Genius Genuine," says the race-horse 
Magpie w T as a hundred and fifty or two hundred yards 
a better horse some days than others, in the distance 
of two miles ! Tiresias won the Derby for the Duke of 
Portland in a canter, to the ruin of many of the betting 
men, who thought his chance was gone from his pre- 
