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lated, and see if we shall not have good sound weight -carriers running 

 up to their fifth, sixth, and aged years. Then would we see improvement 

 in the steeplechaser ; hunting stables and cavalry regiments could be 

 easily supplied with weight-carrying thoroughbreds, while stallions 

 and mares would go to the stud sound, with plenty of bone and up to 

 welter weight. Early training of horses, like the early schooling of 

 children, is baneful to a degree. The legs of the one and the brains of 

 the other are too soft for hard work, and if they get it, they break down. 



No doubt our training establishments are very much better looked 

 after now than they were in years gone by ; but at times, even now, we 

 find nervous young horses illtreated by their attendants, either in tho 

 stable or on the exercise ground, before they have learned what is ex- 

 pected of them. Then, again, see what raw two-year-olds suffer in a 

 severely-contested race, flogged and spurred, as they often are, while 

 doing their utmost. Some of them never forget it, and it is such treat- 

 ment that makes many of them the rogues, cowards, and savages they 

 often become. 



Now for some more of my funny notions upon other racing matters. 



It appears to me strange that owners should be considered famous 

 simply because they happened to possess some great horses. Of course' 

 if men bred horses and afterwards raced them with such success that 

 they became celebrated, the owners would have some claim to fame, 

 and no doubt we have many such men, both in history and at present. 

 But a man who, solely by possession of ample means, acquires a horse, 

 good when purchased, or which turns out good in the trainer's hands 

 after purchase, does not deserve the laudation sometimes given to him. 

 I make no personal allusions, but everyone can call to mind examples of 

 the class of lucky owners 1 mean. Yes, " lucky " rather than " famous " 

 would, I should say, be the more appropriate adjective. It is the 

 trainers and jockeys of great horses who should be held famous, for 

 it was their ability, and not the owner's money, that made the horses 

 great. Moreover, it was in all probability the trainer or other such 

 qualified cicerone that selected the horses in the first instance for this 

 rich man's stable. No doubt the owner sometimes (not always by any 

 means ! ) gets the bulk of the gains, and his name appears among the 

 list of winners at the end of the season — perhaps at the head of them— 

 while he is congratulated all round — he who, in all probability, has had 

 nothing whatsoever to do with the work which has won him his so-called 

 celebrity ! 



No, the owner who I think deserves to be called famous in the annals 

 of the Turf is a man like Mr. Mat Maher of Ballinkeel, who breeds and 

 trains his own horses, and in addition, if he rides them, as does our 

 veteran Major Trocke, he is all the more famous. But to talk of 

 men, rich or not, aristocrats or otherwise, being celebrated because they 

 owned horses that ran well without, perhaps, their owners even seeing 

 them during their preparation, much less taking any part in it— Pshaw ! 

 Lord Waterford, the Days, John Osborne, Tom and Joe Cannon, Major 



