38 THE RACING WORLD 



was a slightly twisted fore-leg ; in all other re- 

 spects I liked him so much that I advised his 

 purchase in spite of this slight malformation. He 

 won a good many races, but that weak point 

 prevented him from being a really good animal ; 

 it always seemed to interfere with him just at 

 the finish, when he was taking on an exception- 

 ally hard task. The mechanism of a horse's legs 

 is so elaborate and delicate, there are such varieties 

 of ways in which they can go wrong, that the 

 wonder rather is so many horses keep sound than 

 that so many others fail to do so. 



Perhaps something should be said about the 



routine of a trainer's life. Rising early in the 



summer, at five or before — rather later at other 



times of the year — he proceeds to his stables to 



interview his head lad, who has already fed the 



horses, to learn from him how they have done 



during the night, and if any are unhappily not lit 



for work ; for horses are very exasperating animals 



in this way : the bad ones rarely seem to hurt 



themselves, it is the good ones that get cast in their 



boxes, or for some mysterious reason are found to 



have a heated joint or to have done some mischief. 



The string then start for the Downs, whipped in 



by the trainer on his hack, conversing with his 



head lad on various stable topics ; and here again it 



