82 PAYING " SCOTT AND LOT." 



my friends a stable full of such : they are a very safe 

 sort, and not the sort that often deceive or ruin their 

 owners. They may not, and certainly would not, win 

 a Derby or a Two Thousand Guineas ; but being (as 

 Providence has ordered I should be, and am forced to 

 be) content with trifles, I have an idea it is better to 

 take up two or three hundred two or three times 

 a-year than to be VERY NEAR winning a fortune, and, 

 by being so repeatedly, eventually losing one. Some 

 men mig t be pleased, if they found a 30,OOOZ. in the 

 lottery was won by ticket 1937, that theirs was 1936 : 

 it was very near I allow : a man is very near the 

 Derby who runs second for it, and sometimes very 

 near his ruin also : but the man who does win 300/. 

 instead of 3000/. has something toward stable expenses, 

 and can pay " Scott and lot," a thing not easily done by 

 being second best. Our horse having done his Beacon 

 length something under eight minutes, we will give 

 him a scrape, put on his clothes, and send him off- 

 beats, thank custom, not having crept in at New- 

 market. Let us hope they never will, for one race 

 can generally give a horse, and very often an owner, 

 quite a sufficient warming for one day. 



Having supposed the above race or trial run, we 

 may infer that the horse who could run so well under 

 9st. might run equally as well, or perhaps proportion- 

 ably better when compared to others, under still higher 

 weight. In this conclusion we should perhaps be 

 right ; but we must not depend upon it as a certainty ; 

 though I have remarked that generally the shape and 

 make, style of going, and stamina that enable a horse 

 to go from end to end four miles, also enable him to 

 carry weight : but what weight ? We have supposed 

 a horse above, that it is clear is no flyer with feather 



