202 TRAINING IN INDIA 



even English thoroughbred stock, it would be unwise 

 for Indian owners of small strings to be over sanguine 

 respecting the subsequent career of their likely though 

 untried maiden Australians, Arabs, or country-breds. 

 Trials between untrained horses are worth very little; 

 because training makes a vast difference between animals 

 of different stamps. Light-carcassed, impetuous non- 

 stayers, who would probably never be fit for anything 

 but selling races, would, perhaps, in a trial for a short 

 distance, beat with ease an equally untrained race-horse 

 which might require months of galloping to get fit. 

 Eeally valuable horses, which can race and stay, are the 

 very kind that require a long time and an enormous 

 amount of work to develop their powers to the utmost ; 

 but impetuous non-stayers, that are often hardly worth 

 their keep, will always be more or less in condition by 

 dancing about and fretting whenever they are taken out 

 of the stable. 



I am very averse to trials as a general rule, for they 

 are liable to upset a horse in his work and to cause 

 accidents. With the best arrangements they are often 

 very misleading as to the idea they give of actual form. 



In the preceding pages I have considered the work a 

 horse may get if there be five or six months to prepare 

 him in before he runs. If, however, the time be limited 

 to only two or three months, a dose of physic on com- 

 mencing will be generally required ; for one must hurry 

 on the work which, with high feeding, if physic be not 

 given, is apt to upset a horse's system and make him 

 feverish, thereby rendering his legs prone to inflammation. 

 Pursuing the system I have already described, the horse 



