326 WAYFARING NOTIONS 



not as a roarer, please understand — I think it was 

 his carrying off that little hurdle race at Windsor 

 with a hundred to one laid against him that first 

 put him in the list of the specially considered. 

 Anyway, there was, standing quiet as the pro- 

 verbial sheep, at one end (the head one nuzzling 

 up to his trainer-part-owner, while at the other, 

 some yards away, his attendant was vigorously 

 massaging the leverage section. 



Over at Woodyates are another lot of horses 

 trained by Sir Charles Nugent. I did not see 

 them, but I went to see the downs, and, even 

 under the influence of a south-wesser stuffed full 

 of north-easterly bitterness sprinkled with flecks 

 of ice-cold rain, fell in love with them. I do not 

 know how long it is since I came that way, and 

 then did not do them properly. Here is fine old 

 turf, close cropped, so with plenty of roots — it is the 

 roots you want — bother the ''herbage" — elastic 

 and making true going. All sorts, lengths, shapes, 

 flats, descents, ascents, every kind of gradient and 

 plan is available for preparing horses. I had got 

 into my head that as Sir Charles Nugent went in 

 almost exclusively for jumpers there might not be 

 the right sort of galloping for flat racers. Instead 

 of which I should not like to have to name one 

 to beat his grounds. When William Day was at 

 the neighbouring Woodyates, and hiring gallops 

 was not such dear work, he must have had 

 facilities for training pretty nearly all the horses 

 in England if he could have found stabling for 

 them. I was reminded of another prominent 

 figure in that connection as I passed the little pub. 

 on the Blandford-Salisbury road. There Sam 

 Adams, who rode Catch em Alive, once lived, and 

 I believe, for a period was landlord. What a 



