RACK HORSES. 167 



them himself, can get good sport with a few moderate 

 ones. Personally I'd take more interest in training an 

 inferior horse and by skill and work, winning races 

 with him in moderate company, than in owning (as 

 many do at home) first class horses, which might be 

 entirely in the hands of a trainer, on whom I would 

 have to be solely dependent for information as to their 

 form and pretensions. 



Six or seven horses will be found a large enough 

 string for up-country meetings, if the owner intends to 

 look after them himself, and expects them to win enough 

 to cover their expenses. To accomplish this, one should 

 have horses of an useful class, that would be certain to 

 find races to run for, at the different meetings to which 

 they might go, with a fair chance of pulling off an 

 event now and then. Keeping horses too good for one's 

 line of country, is hardly more paying than owning 

 horses too bad for it. The presence of first class horses 

 (if their form be known) deters owners from entering 

 against them, the races do not fill, and even if they do so 

 on an odd occasion, there is either no lottery, or the 

 horses get bid up so high, that it *is simply " buying 

 money" to touch them. While in handicaps, a good 

 horse, among moderate ones, gets so much weight piled 

 on, that the odds are, it either breaks him down, or 

 spoils his action. 



A first class steeple chaser does not come under this 

 objection, for " between the flags " one's money being 

 "in the air," men will always enter on the outside 

 chance of a fall or refusal. Besides this, the added 

 money alone is generally worth running for, even with- 



