A TRIAL, 35 



weight by persons who have never attended to racing 

 pursuits, I will mention one instance in a person who 

 one might sujDpose ought to have known better, being 

 a dealer in horses. When in London last year, I saw 

 a horse being led out of the yard in his clothes that I 

 recognised as having belonged to one of our best 

 steeple-chase riders, but now the property of the deal- 

 er. I asked where the horse was going, and was told, 



as a secret, that he was going to to be tried 



against another — his owner having some idea of en- 

 tering him for a steeple-race. Three miles was to be 

 the trial length — a pretty good dose I thought for a 

 horse that had not had a gallop, much less a sweat. 

 On my remarking that the horse was not in a fit state 

 to go a trial, I was informed " that did not signify." 

 Had the horse been mine, I should have thought it did, 

 and a good deal the more so when I was told the other 

 horse had been a month preparing for some Stakes. 

 I then asked who were to ride the trial, and was told, 

 "the owners." The owner of the other horse I knew 

 by name ; he can ride a bit on a flat ; but the dealer, 

 though a fair ordinary horseman, knows about as much 

 of riding a race or trial as Van Amburgh's elephant 

 does of the polka. To crown all, on my asking what 

 were to be the weights, I was told he did not know his 

 friend's weight or his own, but there could not be more 

 than a stone either way. I will answer for it the other 

 knew his own, and that it was on the right side ; so 

 he obliged his friend, and thought his own horse might 

 as well take a gallop in this way as any other. I never 

 heard the result of this well arranged trial. I know 

 of course what it must have been if it had been meant 

 as a trial on both sides : but as I heard the dealer ran 

 his horse afterwards, and he was nowhere, I should not 



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