A CORONATION. 355 



matter so difficult to decide. Circumstances some- 

 times render them preferable to private training ; 

 and sometimes, as an Irishman says, to avoid giving 

 the lie direct, u the reverse of that is the truth." 

 This, of course, the public trainer will never allow. 

 They will tell you, no horse can be properly trained 

 out of a public professional trainer's hands. " Je m'en 

 doute" that is, if the person who undertakes to train 

 a horse knows what he is about ; but let a horse be 

 brought out fit to run for a kingdom, nay let him 

 win it, all the professional trainer would allow would 

 be, " He was brought to post very well FOR home 

 training" I rather think Coronation was brought 

 out pretty well from home training: I suppose I 

 must also say FOR home training ; at all events, he 

 was brought out too well for a good many horses, and 

 people too. 



One thing is pretty certain, in sending a horse to a 

 public training stable, figuratively speaking, every 

 body will know more about the horse than his owner 

 a circumstance, by the by, not very uncommon in 

 private stables unless the owner (or some one for 

 him) keeps as close a watch on the horse as other 

 persons will do when the owner does not. 



To attempt even an insinuation that any of our 

 best public trainers could, in the remotest degree, err 

 in any point of their treatment of horses would, I 

 believe, be a crime much greater in some people's 

 eyes than sacrilege itself. We must then, I suppose, 

 set it down that they are always right. But as there 

 are a good many indifferent trainers, and (I merely 

 suppose it possible) some very ignorant and cou- 

 sequently very obstinate ones, a man may presume 

 far enough to venture an opinion on some part of the 



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