Anecdotes of Race hoi' ses ^-^ 



a loose box, without being able even to walk out of it, and 

 exactly three weeks before the race the late Mr. Egremont 

 Lascelles came to see her. She was in the box, with a 

 rough unkempt coat, and I said to him, " I am going to 

 run this mare at Derby to-day three weeks, as she is now 

 sound again, and she will begin work to-morrow morning." 

 He stared with astonishment, and replied, " Is it possible ? " 

 I answered, " Yes, it's possible, and what is more, the 

 mare will run well." She went on perfectly right, and 

 I rode her myself, when she ran second after a capital 

 race, and the horse that had been second when she was 

 third — and had missed the intervening year — was this 

 time only third, the places being reversed. I am quite 

 sure that if I could have had her for four weeks in 

 training, and three weeks in the box, out of the seven 

 weeks that had elapsed since the accident, instead of the 

 longer period in the stable and the shorter time on the 

 training ground, we should have won. The reason of this 

 was that she was very tit when the accident happened, 

 and had no time to get fat in the interval, the pain of the 

 wound, and the inflammation attending it, also helping 

 to prevent the accumulation of flesh. It was just long 

 enough interval, however, to get the muscles and sinews 

 sufficiently hard to last through the race without col- 

 lapsing, though it is not pretended for one moment that 

 she was nearly as fit as she could have been made if she 

 had had no accident. She afterwards was the winner of 

 . eight races on the flat. 



It was a secret I had learned many years before, 

 from a remarkably observant trainer, that if a horse 

 has done plenty of strong work he can be thrown up 

 entirely for a short period, and if there has not been 



