BRITISH STABLES AND FOREIGN METHODS. 



523 



forty horses carried less than 8st. -jVo., and six, only, carried that weight or above it, 

 while at Newmarket, under similar conditions in the same year, seventy-four horses 

 carried under 8st. j\b., and only one (in the Cambridgeshire) carried that amount in 

 full. William Day had such a rooted objection to what he called "Children's 

 riding," that his idea of raising the weights was really based on his desire to get 

 older men into the saddle all round, and on his more justifiable wish to see more 

 long races with heavy weights; very much as Admiral Rous declared that "short 

 races are destructive to young riders." He quoted with approval the official 

 table of weights for the Queen's Plates then in existence, which varied from the 

 7st. 3lb. of the three-year- 

 old for 3^ miles and up- 

 wards, to the lost. 81b. of 

 the six-year-old and aged 

 over the same distance. 

 At the end of the nine- 

 teenth century the scale 

 of weights for age sanc- 

 tioned by the Jockey 

 Club, and founded on 

 Admiral Rous's publica- 

 tions, though modified 

 since his day, gives 6st. 

 as the lowest limit for 

 a two-year-old over five 



and six furlongs, and gst. iclb. as the highest weight mentioned for six-year-olds and 

 aged over three miles. 



With these facts before us it is possible to consider whether weights can really 

 solve the jockey question. The difference which can be made to some horses by so 

 little as 5lb. is remarkable when you consider that La Fleche won the Cambridge- 

 shire under 8st. iolb., Plaisanterie with Sst. i2lb., and Foxhall with gst. ; or that 

 Isonomy and Carlton carried gst. 1 2lb. first past the post in the Manchester Cup and 

 Manchester Handicap. But some good animals seem never to be stopped, while 

 many moderate horses have been helped to win by a maiden allowance in such 

 a race as the Prince of Wales's Stakes at Ascot. Such considerations have, 

 no doubt, led to the saying that " weight will bring together a donkey and a 



" Fisherman " by " Heron" (1853). 



