TRAINERS AND JOCKEYS 219 



shortly before, and considering the tumble-down state of the 

 premises and the fact that training at Malton is not so 

 popular as it used to be, I think very nearly full value was 

 received. In commenting on this sale, a writer in a racing 

 journal observed : " As showing the extraordinary change 

 that has taken place, when in the days of Thormanby, 

 Dundee, Buxton, Student, Liddington, and Lioness Mat 

 Dawson trained privately for Mr. Merry his salary was 

 ;{^25o per annum, and when James Waugh succeeded him 

 a great deal was made of increasing this to ;^300. The 

 house was of course free, but the trainer had to pay for his 

 own coal. All the cost of fodder was borne by Mr. Merry, 

 the trainer receiving nothing extra per horse for training. 

 His salary was to cover everything. We have now at New- 

 market instances of the head lad being paid a salary of 

 ;;^500 per annum, with house, or just double what Mr. Merry 

 gave Mat Dawson for training Derby winners." Mention 

 of Mat Dawson comes in very appositely, for no one better 

 than he could provide an example to illustrate the actual 

 process of change. Whatever salary he was satisfied with 

 from Mr. Merry, we may be sure that, in his later days 

 at Melton House, Exning, and Heath House, nearer New- 

 market, he could not do with i^300 per annum. He came 

 to Newmarket, and very soon was doing as Newmarket did 

 in his time, though this need not suggest the least extrava- 

 gance, which was quite out of the clever Scotsman's line. 

 Of him it may safely be said that the trainer's lot was a very 

 different thing when he came into the racing world from 

 what it was when he took leave of it and the greater world 

 together in 1898. And, like others, he very wisely did not 

 object to sharing in the improved state of things. 



If getting a long string of horses of all ages ready for 

 their engagements were the sole occupation of a trainer, he 

 would have work enough to do ; but a trainer's present-day 

 duties involve much wider responsibility than this, for in 

 a majority of cases the management of the horses in differ- 

 ent ownerships in the stable is left to him. Give a man 

 three animals, and tell him that one is to be prepared for the 

 Two Thousand Guineas and Derby, another for the Oaks, 



