76 PREPARATION. 



proclaimed by Mr. Lawrence as far back as the year 1809. 

 His protest, unfortunately, was useless, for subsequently the 

 evil increased, and was carried to so great an extent that 

 no horse was thought fit that had not been thus galloped 

 a number of times.^ 



I may take the credit, I believe, of being the first to discon- 

 tinue the practice some twenty-eight or twenty-nine years 

 ago. And I have never reverted to it, for in addition to 

 other evils patently resulting from it, there is one in itself 

 irresistible — the great danger of the horse breaking down. I 

 made this unpleasant discovery for myself by laming two, 

 past recovery, that before were sound as a bell. Finding no 

 good accrued from it, I not only abandoned the practice, but 

 denounced it as fraught with numerous unlooked-for and 

 non-preventable dangers. 



The work done when I was a boy, some thirty-five or forty 

 years ago, of which I have a vivid recollection, was markedly 

 severer than that of to-day. The sweating, for example, 

 was not restricted to matured horses, but the two-year olds had 

 to go through the same trying ordeal once a-week. And this 

 extreme work was only an addition to that done every day 

 of the week, Sunday itself not being an exception ; although 

 on that day the work was minimised, insomuch that a short 

 and slow gallop took the place of the long and fast one. It 

 was in those days customary, before sweating, to gallop 

 the horses the course, whatever it might be, they had to 

 run, certainly up to two miles, whilst the two-year-olds 

 had a half-speed gallop of about a mile ; and though they 

 only galloped once a day, the old ones would gallop twice — 

 first about half speed, a mile and a half or two miles, as the 



^ Mr. Chifney also thought the work done in his day too severe. A book on 

 pedestrianism, too, I find considered it very trying, and the severest form of work. 



