368 TRAINING groom's REFLECTIONS. 



near their best form of running as they ought, 

 they could not under those circumstances have 

 taken as good a measurement of the colts in 

 front of them as we have done; they must 

 therefore be more in the dark than we are. 

 However, we must not lose sight of them : if I 

 should not meet them with any colt of ours, 

 other men of course will, so that we shall know 

 bye-and-bye whether they are good for any thing 

 or not. In looking back to the trials of our two 

 colts as two-year olds, the lengths they have 

 run, and the weights they have carried in them, 

 were unusually high for colts of their age; yet, 

 as far as I could observe at each trial, our best 

 colt appeared to wm easy; and, in questioning- 

 Sam, who rode him, he said, " he did not think 

 his colt had been drawn out to the top of his 

 pace." Again, in looking back to the public 

 running of our second best colt, to say nothing 

 of what he met and beat in the country, in 

 the October meeting at Newmarket, he won a 

 good stake, running not only in a strong field, 

 but also in good company, and which goes to 

 prove him to be a pretty good colt. There- 

 fore, from the above calculation, our best colt 

 must not only be a regular flier, but I think 

 he can run on. However, in his next trial, we 



