TRAINERS AND JOCKEYS 245 



Essex can be drawn blank as far as flat-racers are con- 

 cerned, though there are plenty of chasers all over the 

 county ; but quite lately a new training ground has been 

 utilised at Rushford, near Thetford, in Norfolk. Here 

 A. J. Gilbert has charge of some twenty thoroughbreds, 

 nearly all of whom were bred by and are owned by Mr. 

 Musker, and during the spring of 1900 quite a sequence of 

 winning two-year-olds was sent out. I have not seen the 

 Thetford gallops, but am told that they are very good, and 

 most certainly no young stable ever commenced in better 

 style, Mr. Musker's present plan seems to be to devote 

 himself to the training and sale, as made racehorses, of 

 two-year-olds. Certainly with 10,500 guineas for Toddington, 

 15,000 guineas for Princess Melton, and 5,600 guineas for 

 Lord Melton, he made a brilliant start. 



Not so many years ago Northern and Southern racing 

 was widely divided, and only occasionally, as in the St, Leger 

 week, were there trials of strength between the two schools. 

 During the first half of the century the Northern -trained 

 horses and Northern jockeys fairly held their own with their 

 Newmarket brethren, and in those times it was very sel- 

 dom that the St, Leger went South, In fact, the Northern 

 stables won nearly as many Derbys as the Southerners did 

 St. Legers, and there was, of course, tremendous rivalry 

 between the two factions. The advent of the railways 

 altered everything, and now such places as York and Don- 

 caster attract nearly as many Southern as Northern horses, 

 and it is only at the smaller and less important North- 

 country meetings that the Yorkshire horses have the field 

 (practically) to themselves. No one can say that the racing 

 at the really great North-country meetings — Doncaster, 

 York, Manchester, Liverpool, Gosforth Park June Meeting, 

 and Stockton — is one whit worse than it used to be, but 

 Northern training has fallen upon evil days, for the simple 

 reason that nine-tenths of the racing men who derive their 

 incomes from land or commercial enterprise in the North 

 train their horses in the South of England, I have made 

 allusion to this elsewhere, and now devote a few words to 

 the Northern stables as they are to-day. 



