AND OTHER SKETCHES 183 



CANADA'S VETERAN TRAINER, CHARLES 



BOYLE. 



There are many popular trainers of thoroughbred 

 horses in Canada, but I may, with certainty of not oifend- 

 ing any one of them, designate Charles Boyle, of The 

 Firs, Woodstock, dean of the craft. It is close on forty 

 years ago that I first made his acquaintance. He was 

 then, as now, all horse, and nobody, even in those earlier 

 days, could talk more interestingly on the subject than 

 he. I well remember one May morning in 1870. I, along 

 with a party of friends, was swinging around the circle 

 of stables at Whitby, looking over the horses that were 

 entered in the races under the auspices of the local turf 

 club — the only stable accommodation in those days be- 

 ing at the various hotels. It was in the yard of the Royal 

 that I met the subject of these remarks, and at the time 

 of my visit he was busy at work on a roan horse called 

 Rapid Roan, which he had entered in the Queen's Plate, 

 to be run on the following day. He started, but in the 

 opinion of his trainer his lot in life was not that of 

 bearing a silken jacket and, changing his name to 

 '* Rapid Ruin," he speedily disposed of him, and the last 

 I heard of the roan was that he was doing duty between 

 the shafts of a buggy in a livery stable at Orangeville. 



It is not necessary for me to enumerate all the horses 

 Charles Boyle has handled. To do so would be to fill 

 many pages. It will be sufficient to mention some of 

 the noted ones that he brought to the post. Among 

 those of the earlier days were such good performers as 

 Vespucious, Judge Durell and Musketeer, and a mare 

 that gained him a good deal of credit at the time was 

 Inspiration. She was brought over from the States and 

 came here with a reputation of being a fair sprinter, 

 but under his clever handling she proved able to go all 



