98 WHERE APPEARANCES MAY BE TRUSTED. 



I say superior, I mean good enough to induce a man 

 to consider them as likely to win a Derby. The in- 

 ference I therefore drew was, they could not be all 

 very good, nor could they be all execrably bad ; there- 

 fore, as they were by running pretty much on a par, 

 it followed they were a middling lot ; and a horse 

 beating with difficulty such a field need not raise him 

 much in our estimation. 



A feeling like this would always actuate me in look- 

 ing at a string of horses in training. As to condition, 

 if I saw them all or nearly all very high, I should in- 

 fer they were short of work : if I found them all very 

 light, I should suspect they got too much : if they were 

 thin and looking bad in their coats too, I should say 

 they were starved and mismanaged into the bargain : 

 for, like the young ones in their running, is a stable 

 of horses in their constitutions and stamina; they 

 cannot be all of such strong constitution that proper 

 work will not bring them into proper form ; nor can 

 they be all so delicate that with work proportioned to 

 their strength they cannot be brought up to the mark. 

 I think then, under such circumstances, it would be 

 fair to infer that the trainers of these two stables of 

 horses were, the one addicted to give too little work, 

 the other too much, though both in other respects 

 good trainers, and both perhaps doing as they 

 thought the best for their horses. As to the man 

 whose horses look generally out of condition, and I do 

 know one or two of this sort, he must be either super- 

 latively unlucky or sufficiently stupid, careless, or dis- 

 honest, or all three ; for, with now and then an ex- 

 ception, every horse is to be got up to his mark some- 

 how. He may be light, very light, or he may look all 

 but fat, but he will be in condition. I say look fat, 



