vi PREFACE. 



This is the work that the author has undertaken to do. 

 He feels there is something of presumption in the attempt 

 to write on a topic of so wide an interest and of so national 

 an importance, whilst so many of his professional contem- 

 poraries, pre-eminently fitted for the task, are silent. It is 

 a task which only a trainer can hope to complete with 

 any degree of satisfaction to himself or benefit to others. 

 No one seeking information would read a book on Patho- 

 logy written by any one but a fully qualified physician, or on 

 Political Economy, unless its author were thoroughly versed 

 through experience and study in the features and neces- 

 sities of his country. It is, therefore, not assuming too much 

 to conclude that the fittest person to write on training, 

 and on matters more immediately connected with the turf, 

 must be a trainer. He has knowledge and practical expe- 

 rience which are denied others moving in a different sphere, 

 how^ever exalted, except at second-hand. Information, how- 

 ever good, if transmitted by a process of delegation, cannot 

 fail to lose in its course something of its value. For these 

 reasons the author has ventured to record his own expe- 

 riences of the training of the racehorse and of other matters 

 connected with the turf; and has supplemented the opinions 

 deduced therefrom with those of able and practical men. 



The design of the book is to treat, in the first place, as 

 exhaustively as the writer's ability and experience will per- 

 mit, the process of perfecting the horse for the course; then 

 briefly to review and compare racing as it was and as it is, 

 and to draw such inferences as the study of the subject 



