20 TALES AND TRAITS OF SPORTING LIFE. 



the same amount of woik without the unnecessary seve- 

 rity once so g-eneral and fatah Common sense has of 

 late years driven out much of the conventional practice of 

 the training'-stahle, and a horse is now treated in accord- 

 ance with his pecuhar temper and constitution. Some 

 horses are so nervous that they hegin to fidget at the mere 

 sig-ht of the muzzle with which a horse was^ as a rule^ 

 '^ set" the night hefore he ran ; and now, not one horse in 

 fifty is ever '^ set " at all. Others know as readily the in- 

 tention with which their manes are plaited into thick^ 

 heavy tresses— a part of the etiquette costume of the 

 course now hy no means so carefully ohserved as of yore 

 — and some hegin to ^^ funk/' as the schoolboys say, so 

 soon as the stranger Yulcan comes to shift their light 

 shoes for the still lighter ^' plates. " Certain horses will 

 almost train themselves, without needing any clothing 

 whatever, while grosser animals require continual work. 

 The late Lord Eglinton's famous Van Tromp w^as a very 

 indolent horse, and took an immense '^preparation," two 

 or three good nags being solely employed to lead him in 

 his gallops ; while his temper w^as so bad, that for the last 

 year he was ridden in a muzzle, to prevent his Hying at 

 the other horses out. His yet more renowned half- 

 brother. The Flying Dutchman, went, on the contrary, so 

 freel}^ and pulled so much, that he never had half tlie 

 work of the other^ and usually galloped by himself. But 

 he was of a most excitable temperament, both in and out 

 of the stable. 



This great business of galloping over, Jack Horner 

 brings his horse back in his own proper place in the string 

 to the stable, where he is dressed again far more elabo- 

 rately, and, when '^ set fair," is fed. A horse in work 

 will eat in a day his six '' quarterns" of corn (of sixteen 



