BYRON MACLELLAN 



started at 25 to 1 and of course it was something for 

 the pubUc to remember me by till next year. 



While on the subject of trainers I should like to say 

 that the greatest of all who lived in my time was Bjnron 

 MacLellan, now vmhappily dead. He could make a 

 good horse out of a donkey. He did more to found a 

 good school of trainers than any man known to the 

 world during the last fifty years. MacLellan came 

 from a good Kentucky family, and for the whole of his 

 life was associated with horses. He got to know their 

 disposition, studying them and, like some who suc- 

 ceeded him, believed in building up animals and 

 making allowance for different temperaments. He 

 would, if alive, have screamed at some of the wholesale 

 incompetency of many trainers having the charge of 

 horses to-day. By the way let me say that I am rather 

 nervous in laying down opinions so strongly, but I ask 

 myself, " What is the good of half saying a thing and 

 leaving the best part of it to guesswork ? " I am told 

 that it is easy to make a mistake. It is still more easy 

 to print a libel ! 



What too would MacLellan have thought of what 

 you and I know has been done by many English owners 

 and trainers, and almost been boasted about, with 

 horses which they thought were useless or which after 

 early trials as yearlings they thought were no good. 

 Often such horses are taken out and shot so that they 

 should not lumber up the yard ! It is a sin, for some 

 of them have turned out most useful, and even great, 

 afterAvards. I could mention many instances where 

 horses showing nothing as yearlings proved them- 

 selves later on. I am reminded of this by what 

 my editor writes about Polar Star in Sharps, 

 Flats, Gamblers and Racehorses. Mr Hall Walker's 

 horse was so bad as a yearling that he was not left in 



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