98 THE BLUE RIBBON OF THE TURF. 



one and the same animal, and then proceed to gallop 

 their charges as so many machines. Older practi- 

 tioners in the art have also learned that ditferent 

 horses have different constitutions, and require care in 

 feeding and discrimination in the amount of exercise 

 which is necessary ; and as a great deal of training — 

 since railways opened up the scene of operations — is 

 done in public, criticism is not wanting to temper erro- 

 neous methods. 



It is somewhat difficult to obtain any very reliable 

 information of the modes of training at Newmarket a 

 hundred and twenty years ago — that is to say, about 

 the time the Derby and Oaks were instituted — or 

 resfardinsf the trainers and the social life of the stables. 

 At the period indicated there were presumably no 

 public trainers of horses in the sense that there are 

 public trainers to-day ; at lenst, if there were anj^ 

 they must have been few and far between. Doubtless, 

 one ' training groom ' might have more than one man s 

 horses in his charge, but his masters in that case 

 would be friends or colleao^ues in racing. In the auto- 

 biography of Holcroft, the comedian and dramatist, 

 there is given a vivid sketch of the training and stable 

 discipline of his day, written from personal experience, 

 the author of ' The Road to Iluin ' having been a stable- 

 boy at Newmarket. 



Holcroft travelled from Nottingham on the back of 

 a race-horse, under the guidance of one Jack Clarke, 

 who lived with Captain Vernon ; but his master was to 

 be a Mr. Woodcock, who trained four or five miles 

 from Newmarket. Poor Holcroft, on the way to his 

 new home, was delighted; the plenty of excellent cold 



