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A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



1 



as well as fit ; others can never stand often doing the full distance before the actual 

 day ; others, again, are never so happy as when they are working at full steam all 

 the time. Their constitutions are as different as their conformations ; and so the 

 thoughtful trainer ends his day as he began, thinking over the way a horse is 

 built. At the present time it seems as if the "long, low ones" were as much 

 out of fashion as the seventeen-handers, in spite of the Frenchman Vinicius 

 and his bold bid for the Derby. He was beaten by a much smaller horse, all 



quality. St. Simon and 

 his best offspring have 

 perhaps done as much 

 as anything to form 

 the trainer's ideal just 

 now. A two-year-old 

 that stands straight and 

 true, and moves easily, 

 with pasterns not too 

 straight, good shoulders, 

 and only just room for 

 a saddle on his back, is 

 after all a lovely sight. 

 I do not wonder that 

 owners, and trainers too, 



have made a number of mistakes over such animals before they found out either 

 that they were working them the wrong way, or that they were not worth 

 working at all. 



Even so great a master of his art as Mat Dawson never performed the feat 

 brought off by his pupil, Blackwell, in 1903, of training both first and third in 

 the Derby. It was not long, however, before this feat was beaten in the same 

 season, for R. Denman had the luck to train first, second, and third in the Grand 

 Prix for M. E. Blanc, who thus won the race (worth nearly ,11,000 in 1903) for 

 the sixth time under quite exceptional circumstances, after sending enough horses 

 to the post to ensure the truth, on this occasion, of the motto his father made so 

 famous at Monte Carlo : ""Blanc gagne toujours." The winner. Quo Vadis, was 

 by his owner's WinkfieltCs Pride, who shares with Flying Fox, the honours of a 

 stud that supplies quite sufficient reason in itself for no English horse having 



By permission of His Majesty the King. 



'''Leveret" at Sandringham 



