TRALYERS OF DERBY AND OTHER HORSES. 99 



beef, bread and cheese, with the best table beer, and 

 as mucli as he liked to eat when he stoj^ped to break- 

 fast, were an indication of the happy change he had 

 made from his previous state of poverty. Jack Clarke 

 was so kind as to put the boy on his guard against the 

 tricks Avhicli were always played upon novices in the 

 racing-stables. One of the practical jokes of that 

 period — about the year 1757 — was for the boys to per- 

 suade their victim that the first thing necessary for a 

 w^ell-trained stable-boy to do is to borrow as many 

 waistcoats as he can, and in the morning, after he has 

 fed and dressed his horse, put them all on, take a race 

 of perhaps two or three miles, return home, strip him- 

 self stark naked, and immediately be covered up in 

 the hot dunghill — which they assure him is the 

 method the grooms take when they sweat themselves 

 down to ride a race. Should the poor fellow follow 

 their directions, they conclude the joke with pailfuls 

 of cold water Avhich stand ready to throw over him. 

 Other practical jokes follow, some of them not quite 

 so clean in detail as that just mentioned. Holcroft 

 tells us, in his autobiography, that he rode at exercise 

 in the procession of the stable horses, just as is done 

 to-day both at Newmarket and elsewhere, and many 

 of tlie disagreeable things wdiich occurred were over- 

 looked by the futuie dramatist in consideration of the 

 plentiful supply of excellent food which fell to the lot 

 of the stable-boys. 



Various records of the old modes of training by rule 

 of thumb are extant, and anecdotes and reminiscences 

 of the old-time trainers are occasionally to be met 

 with ; wbile the systems of the period, so far as they are 



7—2 



