84 The Course, the Camp, the Chase 



time enough for inside fat to accumulate, he will require 

 very little galloping before he is again ready to race. 

 My teacher even occasionally carried out his theory so 

 far that he would buy a horse that had been much 

 over-trained, but still showed " form," and throw it up 

 in a loose box for three weeks — the maximum of time 

 that he allowed — " to get juice into it," as he phrased 

 it. He would then put it into training again for another 

 three or four weeks, and by that time it would show 

 very great improvement when it was again tried. In 

 this way he bought " Eose Blush," by " Commotion," who 

 had won a selling race, at Stockbridge (winner to be 

 sold for £30), and afterwards the Trial Stakes at 

 Southampton on 16 th July, when she was sold for the 

 paltry sum of 65 guineas. He told me what he intended 

 to do with her, and recommended me to buy her, as 

 just then I was in want of an animal to take to 

 Spain. I was very sorry afterwards that I had not 

 taken his advice, although I had no reason to complain 

 of the luck that I had with the horse that 1 bought in 

 preference. " Eose Blush " was very poor in flesh, and 

 " dried-up " when she was bought, but after three weeks' 

 rest in a loose box, where I saw her daily, without her 

 shoes, and fed with plenty of grass, she had got quite 

 loose in her skin, and must have been at least two stones 

 heavier in weight. After a few gallops she was taken 

 to Plymouth, and on the 25 th August ran third in the 

 Tradesman's Plate of one mile, and later in the after- 

 noon won the Hurdle Eace Handicap of one and a half 

 miles. The next day she won the Plymouth Plate of 

 one mile by a length, and on the same afternoon another 

 handicap hurdle race, one and a half miles, by a head. 



