56 CONDITION. 
Yet it must be patent from what has been said in the last 
chapter, and it is to all conversant with the habits and treat- 
ment of the racehorse, that the ordinary categorical 
denunciation of the condition of all beaten horses, is but 
an evidence of profound ignorance. As for myself, I have 
shown reason enough, I hope, for my conviction that no 
trainer would be found guilty of an act so suicidal as 
not properly to prepare his horse. His reputation is 
at stake, his very existence, it may be said, involved in 
the well being of his horses. And if these be ill-fed or 
neglected, how can they work? And if they cannot work, 
how can they compete with those that do? No, these base- 
less charges carry their own refutation. No man would set 
himself to defeat his own ends; to successfully accomplish 
that which each one of us is so strenuously seeking to avoid— 
his own degradation and shame. Itis sheer nonsense. Horses 
have run light and will do so to the end; it is one of the 
grand essentials of condition, and few are really fit in any 
other state. 
But after all, condition is but a relative term, as it may be 
viewed by different people. This horse is as widely praised as 
that is widely condemned, equally without reason; for do all 
we can, nothing will prevent horses in condition being light 
in appearance—in some instances to the extent of seeming 
neglect—and yet these horses, oftener than not, beat the big 
and fat ones. We need go no farther for an example than 
the race at Lincoln between Tame Deer and Fisherman ; the 
former looking like a donkey and the latter with a coat like 
satin, his ribs covered (as it was said at the time) with muscle. 
At 3lbs. difference Tame Deer won, proving himself on that 
day and in their respective conditions the better horse at even 
weights—yet ‘it was subsequently proved and remains an 
