no PREPARATION. 



worse. Had the precaution been taken with Charon to try 

 him privately over a long distance before running him 

 publicly over a long course, he would, like Jester, have been 

 one of the most valuable horses of his day ; for the two great 

 handicaps at Newmarket, and many more, would have been 

 entirely at the mercy of one or other of the two. 



It may well be asked, what was the cause of this astonish- 

 ing change ? Was it simply that a trial over a distance of 

 ground was wanting to develop their merits } Was the 

 previous bad running the result of illness or defective manage- 

 ment ? Or did time, and nothing else, work the wonderful 

 change in the two ? The facts are set forth. The reader may 

 be left to form his own deductions as to the curiosities of 

 in-and-out running, and the fallacy of form, as shown in 

 public running, and occasionally in private trials. One thing 

 I may say in support of my preference for light over big con- 

 dition, which was manifest to every one who saw Charon at 

 Doncaster. He was extremely light, and being a light- 

 framed animal, his slender form looked most attenuated. Yet 

 he was fit as a fiddle, and, in any other condition, probably 

 would not have been so. 



As regards the system of training favoured by our Trans- 

 atlantic cousins, it would not, if Mr. R. Ten Broeck's be t^ken 

 as an example, be a bad one with a little modification. So 

 far as I can learn, his plan is to walk his horses many hours 

 daily and gallop long distances slowly. The time devoted to 

 walking I certainly think excessive, for as many as six or 

 seven hours a day are spent in this way. Also in regard to 

 the long distance gallops, four miles, which are done- at a 

 very slow pace till about the last half mile, when the speed 

 is increased to its utmost stretch, I must add, with all 

 respect to Mr. Prior, a most worthy man and excellent 



