100 PREPARATION. 
at auction after winning them. Thus be it remembered, they 
were not sold as old horses worn out: but as two-year-olds, 
such as La Pique and Fortune Teller filly, who, like many 
others with me, were never beaten ; the rest as three-year-olds 
and at other ages, sound and in the prime of life, having won 
a great number of races of most descriptions, including the 
Somersetshire Stakes, the Goodwood Derby, Cup, and Stakes, 
Metropolitan Stakes, Royal Hunt Cups, Royal Stakes, and 
the Two Thousand Guineas. I append the names of a few.! 
Surely out of this list some of them would have improved 
and done wonders after leaving my hands, if they had been 
treated on a wrong principle whilst in them? At all events, 
if they had subsequently theoretically a better training, not 
one of them retained his or her form. 
I am aware that in mentioning this I lay myself open to the 
charge of that self-praise which is truly no recommendation. 
But I trust the reader will not so misconceive what is simply 
a narrative of events, having for its object intelligibility and 
not ostentation. 
But it must not be understood from my strenuous advocacy 
of severe training, that horses in my opinion cannot be over- 
done. I know to the contrary. I have myself trained horses 
that when fit have been tried so often to ascertain their own 
form and that of others, that they have been as stale as the 
proverbial post-horse and as slow as his rider. Yet this proves 
nothing against the system; they are but the occasional 
exceptional cases which go to prove the rule. It is not the 
training itself, but the abuse of it, in running them so often 
1 Castle Hill, Benefactress, Forlune Teller filly, Philippa, Foco, Sir Charles, Con- 
fidence, Valuer, Frudye, Starter, La Pigue, Miss Williams, Benefactor, Cedric, 
Conductor, Cedric the Saxon, Pitchfork, Allie Slade, Bugler, Promised Land, 
Plunkett colt, Leah colt, Albanus, Camelia, and many others. 
