284 THE ENGLISH TURF 



Up to the middle of the nineteenth century four-mile heats 

 were common at every country race meeting, and horses had 

 to race twelve, sixteen, and sometimes twenty miles in a 

 single afternoon. I have no desire to go back to the old 

 system, which overdid the thing altogether, and was almost 

 cruel in its severity ; but we have now reached the opposite 

 extreme, and about half the young horses which come into 

 training every year are never asked to go further than a mile 

 in their two or three seasons of racing. Many of them too 

 are condemned as non-stayers because they cannot win a 

 five- or six-furlong race, but I believe it to be the case that 

 a large proportion of these horses are " choked " in attempt- 

 ing to win over a short cut, and would develop into stayers 

 according to their class if they were trained differently, 

 and not hustled off their legs every time they are galloped 

 in earnest. Here is an incident which shows that a lack of 

 mere speed is not a bar to winning races. Not long since 

 a certain owner had three or four useful steeplechase nags, 

 with which he won several races in the Midlands. A 

 friend came for a few days' hunting and brought with his 

 hunters a thoroughbred pony, which was too small for racing 

 purposes and did duty as covert hack. One morning, while 

 the chasers were doing a " school," the visitor rode the pony, 

 which was a capital jumper, round the course, and that even- 

 ing chaffed his host about the slowness of his horses which 

 by the way had won seventeen races during the preceding 

 three months. The upshot of the chaff was that the visitor 

 matched his pony to run the horse which was admittedly the 

 best of the team, three races, viz. half a mile on the flat, a mile 

 on the flat, and two miles over the steeplechase course best 

 two out of three. There was no occasion for the third race 

 of the series, for the pony won the half-mile and repeated 

 the dose at a mile; and yet the horse he beat won a fair-class 

 handicap steeplechase under 1 1 st. 4 Ibs. only a week later. 



It is common enough to hear a trainer with good horses 

 under his charge exclaim, a propos of some non-stayer who 

 has made running for two-thirds of the distance in a short 

 race and then retired beaten, " Oh, that can beat anything 

 I've got for half a mile, but cannot go an inch further." 



