TOD SLOAN 



instruction in race-riding. How pleased I was with 

 him! 



While Charron and many other trainers have done 

 well at Maisons Laffitte in turning out winners, that 

 centre is far from ideal for training purposes, the horses 

 there having to journey to Acheres, to get tried out. 

 The course at " Maisons " is admirable, especially that 

 straight mile and a quarter with excellent turf all the 

 way. It beats Chantilly in this respect, although 

 perhaps there is no finer training place in the world 

 than the French headquarters. The great point 

 about choosing a suitable place to train horses is to 

 have the gallops as near as possible to the stables. 

 Some of the Wiltshire and other Southern English 

 stables are much too far removed from where the work 

 has to take place. Take Darling's establishment at 

 Beckliampton, or Robinson's at Foxhill, or Ogbourne, 

 where Mr George Edwardes has his horses. I should 

 consider that in some cases a horse had done quite 

 enough exercise when he arrived at the place where he 

 was expected to " work " — in other words, he might be 

 overdone with that extra bit. This is very like hacking 

 a long way to a meet — so little is left to work on in a 

 horse. Chantilly is splendid in this respect, and lucky 

 is the man who has a good horse to train there. When 

 Mr Theodore Myers took the place in Brussels, a picture 

 of the stable yard appearing in this book, we had only 

 three quarters of a mile to go to begin work — ^the 

 greatest of all considerations. 



Of course there is only one great race-course in the 

 world, that being Newmarket ; nothing ever laid out 

 or adapted from nature ever approached it. Every 

 distance, plenty of room, splendid going in all seasons : 

 what can equal it ? Some of the spectators and visitors 

 from abroad complain of the accommodation, but racing 



274 



