THE EPSOM AND ASCOT COURSES. 175 



it is one of the easiest, or one which circumstances often render 

 so. In proof of this I may say, that generally the horses only 

 canter up the hill, which is a fact shown by their being all 

 together at the top, and then they run at a good pace the last 

 three-quarters of a mile down hill. " The consequence is," he 

 further adds, " that more valuable horses are broken down 

 from this cause when training for this race than from many 

 of the others put together. Such a horse will never stand a 

 Derby preparation. Why ? Because he is frequently galloped 

 to death and broken down." Such reasoning to my mind is 

 diametrically opposed to common sense. For it appears to 

 me that to say a horse is fit to run over one course a given 

 distance, and not over the same distance on another, is little 

 less than sheer nonsense. It is just as absurd to allege that it 

 takes more or less work and requires it differently administered 

 for preparation to run over opposite courses of the same length 

 as we find them here in England. Horses cannot but be fit, 

 as I have elsewhere demonstrated, and when fit to run one 

 course must be fit to run any other, provided only it be the 

 same length. 



But to return to more directly consider how horses are 

 differently affected by running on different courses, I may say 

 that probably the two most dissimilar courses in England are 

 Ascot and Epsom, over the last three-quarters of a mile. The 

 one is all up hill, and the other all down. Conspiracy may 

 fairly be said to run at least sixteen pounds better over Epsom, 

 than any other course. Of this we have public proof, whilst 

 other horses do the same at Ascot. Sir Charles won the 

 Royal Hunt Cup there very easily, owing to his preference for 

 the course, for he never won before or after, though he often 

 tried elsewhere ; and by a strange oversight he never ran 

 there again. He left me shortly after the victory because the 



