4io 



CHAPTER XVI. 



TRAINING AND BREEDING. 



" Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis 

 Est in juvencis est in equis palrum 

 Virtus nee imbellem feroces 

 Progenerant aquilae columbam." 



" Seu quis Olympiacae miratus praemia palmae 

 Pascit equos, seu quis fortes ad aratra juvencos, 

 Corpora praecipue matrum legal." 



T T would, I think, be improper in such volumes as the present, to draw a 

 *- detailed comparison between the methods of trainers now living and those of 

 older men, or even to trace the development of these matters from the days 

 when Whitewall and the North were predominant, to those when the first ten 

 winning trainers of 1902 do not include a single Yorkshire stable. But the material 

 which trainers have to handle is a very different subject, and none could be more 

 appropriate to these pages. 



Even from the little I have been able to record of the early Turf, a very great 

 difference is observable between the methods of the eighteenth century and 

 our own. Before the institution of the Jockey Club, and the development of 

 the Derby and the Oaks as annual fixtures, the three-year-old was scarcely 

 raced at all. He was in very much the same position as the yearling of to-day. 

 Some of the best horses in the reigns of William III. and of Anne won their 

 first race in a Six-year-old Plate, and certainly went on running matches till they 

 were ten and even twelve years old. The distances they ran were far more 

 punishing than is now the case, as much as six or even eight miles being occa- 

 sionally suggested, while four heats of a mile each was a common performance for 

 one horse on the same day. It is obvious, therefore, that owners were contemplating 

 a very different goal for their endeavours during most of the eighteenth century 



