:286 ON THE DUTIES OF PUBLIC AND 



Besides a clear head and a quick eye, there is one 

 more essential that a groom should possess, and that 

 is a still tongue. For, as public trainer, he is very 

 likely to have a large establishment of horses standing 

 in his yard, many of which, if not all of them, are 

 under his direction. Being thus engaged to train for 

 different noblemen and gentlemen of the turf, he must 

 learn to be silent in order to give general satisfaction 

 to every one of his employers, but more particularly 

 if any of the horses belonging to different owners 

 should be matched against each other, or engaged to- 

 gether in the same stakes or plates. It is true that it 

 does not often happen that horses so matched stand 

 together, and it is a sort of thing which should at all 

 times be avoided by the owners of such horses as are 

 training in the same yard, for it must necessarily be 

 unpleasant to the trainer (there being but one horse 

 that can win); and although he may endeavour to serve 

 all his employers Vvith equal integrity, yet from the 

 opinions formed by inexperienced sportsmen of the pro- 

 perties of their horses, disappointments in the result of 

 a race will sometimes occasion jealousy to arise in the 

 minds of the most liberal of those whose horses may 

 have been beaten. Noblemen and gentlemen vv^ho em- 

 ploy a public training groom w ill of course at times re- 

 quire of him how their horses may be going on in their 

 work, and they will, not un frequently, request his 

 individual opinion of them. He should always reply 

 cautiously. I do not mean to say that he should pre- 

 varicate, but the less he says to a young sportsman, the 



