A Morning at Newmarket 245 



being laid by its side, and up the tan — for the fine 

 weather has hardened the turf— come a number of 

 liorses, watched by a gentleman who sits with somewhat 

 bent shoulders on a dark-coloured pony with a silver 

 mane. Most sagacious of turf guides, philosophers, and 

 friends as he is, we may be sure that nothing that is to 

 be seen evades his observation. Perhaps you were 

 surprised yesterday by the victory of some animal you 

 had been convinced could have no sort of chance ; but 

 ' the Captain ' will tell you why he believed it was certain 

 to win. Possibly you may have a great fancy to-day for 

 some much- talked-of horse that is already a hot favourite ; 

 but he will quietly give you a convincing reason why it 

 can have nothing beyond the very faintest prospect of 

 success ; and most likely you will find his prognostications 

 borne out to the letter. Most likely, too, you would 

 read in some of the lower-class racing papers, if you 

 looked at them, the grossest innuendoes as to the 

 animal's running, the writers going as far as they dare 

 to hint that the beaten animal, who had been foolishly 

 elevated to false favouritism, was never ' meant.' No 

 less alert is the trainer, who sits on his pony, raising 

 his hand at intervals to warn a boy that he is going 

 too fast, or — but this very rarely indeed — waving it to 

 another as an intimation to quicken his speed ; and so 

 the lot, including a winner of the Derby ' going great 

 guns,' as the vague phrase has it, pass by. He is a 

 wonderful judge of what horses are doing, this trainer. 

 Once he stood watching the horses as they neared the 

 stand in a race ; ' Mine's won,' he suddenly remarked, 

 while yet the field were some quarter of a mile from 

 home, and he put away his glasses. To the not wholly 

 uncultivated eye of his neighbour, three or four seemed 



