40 THE ENGLISH TURF 



otherwise attended to, the work being done under the super- 

 vision of the Keeper of the Heath. This functionary also 

 decrees which gallops are to be used from week to week, and 

 takes care that any particular gallop is closed when it 

 shows signs of being cut up, as gallops often do. There is 

 so much good ground available on either side of the town 

 that, in a general way, at least half a dozen different gallops 

 are open, and these can be changed as often as it is neces- 

 sary by placing " dolls " on the worn parts until they have 

 had time to recover. " Dolls " are wooden trestles some 

 eight or ten feet in length, and about three feet high, and 

 their presence naturally prevents the trainer from taking his 

 horses where they are. The Newmarket training grounds 

 are of great breadth everywhere, and although nearly fifteen 

 hundred horses are trained there, it is quite possible to find 

 room for them all, without being obliged to crowd them into 

 one place, as would be the case with horses trained on a 

 railed-in course. 



For example, the Limekilns are not much short of a mile 

 in width at their base, and horses are galloped from the low 

 — or base — end up to the top. About a mile and a quarter 

 can be covered in this particular spin, and in an ordinary 

 way at least half a dozen different tracks are open, each 

 divided by rows of "dolls." The same system is pursued 

 with all the other gallops, and the various tan tracks are 

 harrowed every day. At the bottom or eastern end of the 

 Limekilns is the Water Hall or Winter Ground, and this 

 is open to the Limekilns in several places, the intervening 

 spots being filled up with groups of trees. The Water Hall 

 is square in shape, and between two and three miles round, 

 and from the eastern end of it, to the top of the Limekilns, 

 a grand trial ground for a Caesarewitch horse is available. 

 The Limekilns, by the way, are on a gradual rise from the 

 start to the finish of the gallops, though if horses are 

 galloped from the high side, near the Bury Road, the ascent 

 is nothing like so steep as when they are started near the 

 Norwich Road. The Water Hall is one of the flattest 

 gallops at headquarters. Up the Bury Hills a long and 

 very trying gallop can be managed, and on the Cambridge 



