ATTITUDE TO HIS TRAINER. 269 



must be complete.' But Mr. Swindell thought dif- 

 ferently, and took possession of the business and dis- 

 posed of it to a stranger. 



Mr. Swindell left me when I became private trainer 

 to Sir Frederick Johnstone and Mr. Sturt, now Lord 

 Alington. I had the privilege of training for Lord 

 Durham and other noblemen and gentlemen ; but 

 those of whom they did not approve had to leave, 

 and one of them was Mr. Swindell, or probably he 

 would have remained with me to the day of his death. 

 He was in many things a pattern to racing-men, 

 worthy of all imitation ; for he never, in my experi- 

 ence at least, asked the trainer, or anyone else 

 connected with the stable, a word about other 

 people's horses at an improper time, or until the 

 mornino- of the race. Indeed, he seldom wanted to 

 know anything of his own much earlier. He never 

 arranged the weights of a trial (though he suggested, 

 as 1 have related, that Bevis should receive a stone 

 from Minotaur) or saw one ; nor did he ever see a 

 horse of his own or of anyone else in my stable 

 during the many years I trained for him, though 

 often asked to do so. He used to say, ' What can I 

 know more after than before I have seen him ?' 

 Carrying out the same principle, however strange it 

 may appear, he never saw any of his own horses at 

 any place where they might be for the purpose of 

 running, in the stable ; nor did he see one on the 

 heath, except when racing, and then only in, or after, 



