142 The Practical Stud Groom. 



the ' hell for leather ' tactics of to-day better than do the 

 modern thoroughbreds ' ' ? 



Many trainers complain that the material they have 

 to work on in the present day is more difficult to train, and 

 stands the wear and tear of racing very badly compared with 

 horses of twenty years ago. Each year as the stud groom 

 delivers the annual batch of yearlings to the training 

 stables, the trainer expresses a pious hope that this lot will 

 prove more satisfactory than the last, which the stud groom 

 is apt to construe into a back-handed slap at his ability. Is 

 it not quite feasible that the stock is not really deteriorating, 

 but that the tasks set on the race-courses of to-day, and 

 incidentally on the training grounds, are immeasurably 

 more severe than those confronting the horses of twenty 

 years ago? Is it mere coincidence that the charge of 

 deterioration has been made with ever-increasing vehemence 

 during the last ten or twelve years, or, roughly speaking, 

 since the year that " Tod " Sloan arrived and revolutionised 

 the methods of George Fordham, Fred Archer, Tom 

 Cannon, John Watts, and other brilliant horsemen? 



When it is realised that the most rapid stage of the 

 horse's growth is that between the age of 12 and 24 months, 

 which period coincides with the breaking in and condition- 

 ing stages of the two-year-old's career; and if the percent- 

 age of the crop of foals of any one year that succumb in 

 either their two or three-year-old season to what are called 

 the " exigencies of training," is worked out, some clue may 

 be gained to the cause of the alleged deterioration of the 

 British Thoroughbred. 



At the very commencement of this book the question of 

 " ideals " in connection with stud farm planning was intro- 

 duced, and throughout the succeeding pages the author's 

 object has been to suggest " ideal " methods of obtaining the 



