Trainers and yockeys. 23 



He was considered so facile princcps in his art, that 

 his example was not only potent enough to alter 

 the barbarous training hours at Newmarket, but also 

 to shame not a few out of the "perpetual motion" 

 system to which their charges had hitherto been 

 doomed. His father, who trained Highflyer, came 

 originally from the North to the Valley, or rather 

 Eight-mile Bottom (now sacred to University hack 

 races), where he trained for the Duke of Bedford, 

 Mr. Shafto, &c., until the offer of a large salary in- 

 duced him to become a private trainer at Kingston 

 House, Newmarket, at which place he died in 1797. 

 Robson, who had been up to that date training for 

 Sir F. Poole, at Lewes, then took to the business, 

 and made sixty thousand pounds out of it. Between 

 1828-38 he lived at Exning ; but he loved Kingston 

 House best, and the last six months of his life were 

 spent there. 



Training is no longer the occult science it was con- 

 sidered when Robson's word was law, and Tiny Ed- 

 wards's horses could " be known in a crowd ;" and 

 jockey lads, when their too solid flesh refuses to melt 

 below 8st. /lbs. bring their horses quite as " fit" to 

 the post as the oldest trainers. "The Duke's" mode 

 of keeping his cavalry horses in form was to allot 

 them two hours a day for doing six miles out and in 

 from Brussels, eight miles of which was done at a 

 sharp trot, and the rest in a walk; and even with 

 seven out of ten racers, it is almost equally plain sail- 

 ing; but when a delicate-constitutioned one comes to 

 hand, mere routine fails, and the union of great care, 

 experience, and mind (we use the word advisedly) 

 can alone bring him fit to the post. Still, as a general 

 rule, talent among the clever trainers is very equal, 

 and it rarely happens that when one of them 

 has failed to make a horse run, things are made any 

 better by a change of stables ; and in fact, if the 

 first trainer has had the animal since it was a year 



