EXAMPLES OF “BIG” AND “LIGHT” CONDITION, 47 
various horses, all of which have been in the highest 
condition. 
When a horse is stout, or, as many would have it, full of 
muscle, looks well in his coat, and has good action, then many 
assert he is fit to run. Most fallacious and untrustworthy 
idea; for often the appearance of the horse that is fit is just 
the reverse—in a condition, indeed, as I have said, fit to run 
for a man’s life, yet no one would be bold enough to say so 
who feared the laughter of the wiseacres. On the other hand, 
there are few who would not hazard an opinion, and pronounce 
to a man, the horse that is sleek and fat, the fittest. The fact 
is, no one but the trainer, who has charge of the animals so 
different in appearance, can give an opinion worth having ; 
the public, on the other hand, would, I venture to affirm, be 
wrong in nine cases out of ten. 
I will give two examples of the comparatively exceptional 
instances of horses being fit when big. Catch~em-A live, when 
he got out of the van at Newmarket, was condemned as too 
big by touts and turf critics, who cynically remarked he would 
not have so many looking at him after his race (the Cam- 
bridgeshire Stakes) on Tuesday ; yet he won, and from sheer 
gameness—a never-failing test of condition. Astorian, on 
his first appearance in public for the Lavant Stakes at Good- 
wood, was fit and round as an apple, looking to the cognoscenti 
quite fat, and all said he would see a better day—but he never 
did, winning easily, and in the same state won many races 
after. 
Now let us contrast his seeming fat state with that of a 
light bad-conditioned mare afterwards called Za Pigue, who 
looked little better than a bag of bones encased in the roughest 
of hair. At the appearance of such a wretch a general out- 
burst of indignation was indulged in, and on all sides she was 
