TRAINERS AND JOCKEYS 235 



Jewitt, whose name in days to come will be chiefly asso- 

 ciated with that grand horse Isinglass, had a successful 

 career of some twenty years, but he fell into wretched 

 health, and could no longer attend to his business. The 

 stable has been a powerful one since Captain Machell went 

 to Newmarket more than thirty years ago, and if Captain 

 Beatty is to maintain the high standard which Bedford 

 Cottage has so long enjoyed, he has no light task before 

 him. 



Of country training quarters Kingsclere is without doubt 

 the most famous of the present day, and though Kingsclere 

 means John Porter's establishment, there being no other 

 training establishment in the place, it is nevertheless the 

 one great rival of Newmarket as regards the classic races, 

 though Derby winners in the last ten years have been 

 trained at Beckhampton, in Wiltshire, and at Stanton, in 

 Shropshire. The history of Kingsclere has been very fully 

 set forth in John Porter's own book, and on that book I 

 have no wish to encroach. Porter has been at the head of 

 his profession for many years. His is a stable which flies at 

 the highest game, and classic and good weight-for-age horses 

 are in most years to be found in it. Handicaps are not 

 greatly affected by the Kingsclere establishment, but in 

 recent years a Caesarewitch and Cambridgeshire have been 

 won, and a fair share of minor events. Selling plates are 

 avoided, and if a Kingsclere horse is entered for one it may 

 be taken as absolutely certain that the intention is to have 

 it sold out of the stable. No attempt will be made to 

 buy it in. This is part and parcel of the policy of Kings- 

 clere, where no horse is kept if he is not up to the stable 

 average of merit. Under such conditions it now and then 

 happens that a plater leaves the stable below its value, a 

 striking instance of this being afforded by Strike-a-Light 

 in 1898. This filly won a selling race at Newmarket in 

 July, was sold for 770 guineas, and before the close of the 

 season she had credited her new owner with a brace of 

 nurseries and a weight-for-age race in which she beat good 

 second-class three-year-olds, the total of her winnings in 

 stake money falling little short of ^1,000. 



