'TRIALS' OF YEARLINGS 201 



peculiarities have to be separately studied. I am 

 no advocate for early forcing. A long and steady 

 course of gentle exercise to get rid of the superfluous 

 fat, which in many cases has been piled on by a 

 pernicious system of over-feeding, should be pursued. 

 This remark applies, of course, more especially to 

 yearlings purchased in a public sale-ring. Foals 

 bred and brought on in the manner I have described 

 are naturally readier to the hand of the trainer than 

 are the " prize" animals. A most injurious system 

 of trying yearlings has been adopted by many 

 members of my craft. At a time of the year when 

 the ground is heavy and the young things are 

 clothed in their first long coat, it is quite impossible 

 to do them justice, or give them anything like a fair 

 chance. By hurrying them while they are in such 

 an unfit state you may abate superfluous blubber, 

 but you have no time to replace it with good hard 

 muscle. I have had many young horses pass 

 through my hands who, had they been subjected to 

 this rushing kind of treatment, would never have 

 seen a racecourse at all — Ormonde and Common 

 for example, and I could name others. Such 

 "trials" of yearlings as arise out of the hurrying 

 system are enormously deceptive. There are 

 youngsters which appear to fly for a space of four 

 furlongs that in after-life can never get a yard 

 further than that distance. 



1 We now take up the horse as he commences his 

 two-year-old career. Let your trainer, if he be a 

 master of his business, employ his judgment, first, 



