loo PREPARATION. 



at auction after winning them. Thus be it remembered, they 

 were not sold as old horses worn out : but as two-year-olds, 

 such as La Pique and Fortune Teller filly, who, like many 

 others with me, were never beaten ; the rest as three-year-olds 

 and at other ages, sound and in the prime of life, having won 

 a great number of races of most descriptions, including the 

 Somersetshire Stakes, the Goodwood Derby, Cup, and Stakes, 

 Metropolitan Stakes, Royal Hunt Cups, Royal Stakes, and 

 the Two Thousand Guineas. I append the names of a few.^ 

 Surely out of this list some of them would have improved 

 and done wonders after leaving my hands, if they had been 

 treated on a wrong principle whilst in them ? At all events, 

 if they had subsequently theoretically a better -^training, not 

 one of them retained his or her form. 



I am aware that in mentioning this I lay myself open to the 

 charge of that self-praise wdiich is truly no recommendation. 

 But I trust the reader will not so misconceive what is simply 

 a narrative of events, having for its object intelligibility and 

 not ostentation. 



But it must not be understood from my strenuous advocacy 

 of severe training, that horses in my opinion cannot be over- 

 done. I know to the contrary. I have myself trained horses 

 that when fit have been tried so often to ascertain their own 

 form and that of others, that they have been as stale as the 

 proverbial post-horse and as slow as his rider. Yet this proves 

 nothing against the system ; they are but the occasional 

 exceptional cases which go to prove the rule. It is not the 

 training itself, but the abuse of it, in running them so often 



1 Casth- Hill, Benefactress, Foitime rdlcr filly, PJiilippa, Jcco, Sir Charles, Con- 

 fidence, Valuer, Jied^c, Starter, La Piijue, Miss Williams, Benefactor, Cedrie, 

 Conductor, Cedrie the Saxon, Pitchfork, Allie Slade, Btigler, Promised Land, 

 Plunkett colt, Leah colt, Albanus, Cavtelia, and many otliers. 



