EXAMPLES OF "BIG" AND "LIGHT" CONDITION. 47 



various horses, all of which have been in the highest 

 condition. 



When a horse is stout, or, as many would have it, full of 

 muscle, looks well in his coat, and has good action, then many 

 assert he is fit to run. Most fallacious and untrustworthy 

 idea; for often the appearance of the horse that is fit is just 

 the reverse — in a condition, indeed, as I have said, fit to run 

 for a man's life, yet no one would be bold enough to say so 

 who feared the laughter of the wiseacres. On the other hand 

 there are few who would not hazard an opinion, and pronounce 

 to a man, the horse that is sleek and fat, the fittest. The fact 

 is, no one but the trainer, who has charge of the animals so 

 different in appearance, can give an opinion worth having ; 

 the public, on the other hand, would, I venture to afiirm, be 

 wrong in nine cases out of ten. 



I will give two examples of the comparatively exceptional 

 instances of horses being fit when big. Catch- em- A live, when 

 he got out of the van at Newmarket, was condemned as too 

 big by touts and turf critics, who cynically remarked he would 

 not have so many looking at him after his race (the Cam- 

 bridgeshire Stakes) on Tuesday ; yet he won, and from sheer 

 gameness — a never-failing test of condition. Historian, on 

 his first appearance in public for the Lavant Stakes at Good- 

 wood, was fit and round as an apple, looking to the cognoscenti 

 quite fat, and all said he would see a better day — but he never 

 did, winning easily, and in the same state won many races 

 after. 



Now let us contrast his seeming fat state with that of a 

 light bad-conditioned mare afterwards called La Pique, who 

 looked little better than a bag of bones encased in the roughest 

 of hair. At the appearance of such a wretch a general out- 

 burst of indignation was indulged in, and on all sides she was 



