204 TRAINING IN INDIA. 



winning-post, on -the course on which the race has to 

 come off. 



If an owner tries a lot of fresh horses, and finds but 

 little difference between them, or at least, between the 

 best three or four, he may be almost certain that there 

 is not a race-horse among them. According to Admiral 

 Eous there is an average of about three remarkable 

 runners in 2,000. There being so many failures among 

 even English thorough-bred stock, it would be unwise 

 for Indian owners of small strings to be over sanguine 

 respecting the subsequent career of their likely, though 

 untried, maiden Australians, Arabs, or Couritry-breds. 

 Trials between untrained horses are worth very little ; 

 because training makes a vast difference between 

 animals of different stamps. Light carcassed, im- 

 petuous non-stayers, who would probably never be fit 

 for anything but selling races, would, perhaps, in a trial 

 for a short distance, beat with ease an equally untrained 

 race-horse which might require months of galloping to 

 get fit. Keally valuable horses, which can race and 

 stay, are the very kind that require a long time, and 

 an enormous amount of work to develop their powers 

 to the utmost; but impetuous non-stayers, that are 

 often hardly worth their keep, will always be more or 

 less in condition by dancing about, and fretting, when- 

 ever they are taken out of the stable. 



I am very averse to trials, as a general rule ; for they 

 are liable to upset a horse in his work and to cause 

 accidents. With the best arrangements, they are 

 often very misleading as to the idea they give of actual 

 form. 



In the preceding pages, I have considered the work a 



