SOME EARLY VICTORIAN OWNERS. 



491 



neither rides the horses himself, nor does he train them. He does not know, for 

 instance, how an apprentice with an allowance of five pounds will manage his mount ; 

 he may not be aware of the fitness of an animal or of the intentions of its owner ; 

 he is not sure in all cases whether drugs have been used which may eventually 

 destroy all the horse's usefulness, but may for the first few times give him an 

 entirely unexpected- and unnatural turn of speed; and, lastly, he can no more guard 

 against accidents than he could relieve Epsom of its " Derby dog." But, apart from 

 all this, his knowledge of racing must be intimate, perpetual, judicious. He must 

 know what to forget as well as what to remember. He must be familiar with the 

 peculiar features of every racecourse. He must cultivate an expert acquaintance with 

 every animal likely to 

 come before him, their 

 individual foibles, their 

 stamina, their favourite 

 courses, their behaviour 

 under given 



circum- 



stances. Being unable 



" Newminster" by " Touchstone " (1848). 



to take any more risks 



than are inevitable, the 



handicapper must go by 



the best form a horse 



has shown, and never 



take off weight until 



his own certainty of 



deterioration practically coincides with the trainer's conviction that it is useless to 



enter the animal again. 



A modern expert, greatly daring, has laid down a few general rules. They are : 

 (i) horses which have never run should carry the top weight, on the weight-for-age 

 scale ; (2) horses which have only run once should have a slight concession, the class 

 in which they run being taken into consideration ; (3) after two races a considerable 

 concession can be made if they have been fairly ridden out ; (4) not till after three 

 races can they be fairly treated on their merits, and take their rightful place in a 

 handicap ; (5) foreign horses whose form is unknown should be weighted more or 

 less as having never run. 



But there can be no hard-and-fast lines on which any handicap can be drawn up. 



