298 TRAINERS WITHOUT TRAINING. 



imprudently run the best horse in the world over 

 any course, even the worst, any distance for £20, 

 even though the unfortunate animal had on the same 

 day, or the day before, won him £2,000, and was 

 eno-ao-ed in a similar valuable contest on the next. 

 He would run if he had the chance every day of the 

 week, and travelled on Sunda}'s in readiness for 

 a race, at any distance, on Monday. Training under 

 such circumstances was out of the question ; nor do 

 I think he ever studied it much under any other. 



A succession of good luck now brought him many 

 friends and much gain. Unfortunately he could 

 never manage to keep, for any length of time, the one 

 or the other — hence his perpetual troubles. ' The 

 Squire of Wantage,' as Argus used facetiously to call 

 him in the Morning Post, must have been at best 

 but a bad financier, and singularly unfortunate in his 

 monetary transactions ; for I believe he was scarcely, 

 if ever, out of the hands of money-lenders and 

 lawyers, and in debt to all of whom he could borrow 

 anything. He was served with more partly printed 

 papers, probably, than any man in the world ; indeed, 

 he used to say they would have covered the walls of 

 his own house. He died at about the age of seventy 

 in straitened circumstances at his house at Tit- 

 comb Regis, leaving a widow and son to lament 

 his loss. 



These are by no means the only instances I could 

 point to, where men have presumptuously under- 





