MR. JOHN SCOTT'S PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE. 93 



won easily. The great trainer may have had occasionally 

 his own motives which fatness assisted ; but I conceive the 

 chief one was to please the public — a predilection which in 

 some cases forced him to part with good horses simply 

 because run out of condition. 



Two or three cases may be named to show either that he 

 was not quite proof against public opinion or that he mistook 

 the merits of his own horses. Adamas was lost in this way 

 whilst running in a Selling Plate to be sold for £\o. In the 

 following year he won the City and Suburban and was second 

 for the Derby. TJie Era was also claimed out of a Selling 

 Plate and afterwards won the Goodwood Cup ; whilst 

 MicJiacl Scotfs running was positively wretched both as a 

 two- and three-year-old. At the latter age he ran seven races 

 and in many carried the lightest weight — mostly in bad com- 

 pany; yet he was unable to win one, or even get placed whilst 

 in the hands of Mr, Scott. This worst of all brutes then 

 passes into other hands, and within a month commences his 

 successful career by winning the Great North Riding Handi- 

 cap at Northallerton, and adding six more races consecutively 

 to his list of winnings that year. He therefore loses seven 

 races while at Malton and wins seven after leaving it. He 

 was afterwards sold for a large sum to go abroad. 



What would be said if such an occurrence took place with 

 any one that professed to train his horses light .-' My father 

 always trained his horses light, saying, " Show me a better 

 plan, and I will gladly follow it." But as none was forth- 

 coming, he continued in the same way with the greatest suc- 

 cess. In no single case but that of Toothillwz.s any horse 

 made better after leaving his stable ; and this exception was 

 clearly traceable to the ground, as it afterwards appeared 

 that TootJiill could not move on hard turf in such a state as 



