152 TRIALS. 
neither was first class, both could and did win good races. 
Indeed one of them was about as far from “the top of 
the tree” as the other, and so they answer the purpose of 
illustration as well as better horses, 
I should also expect to see a good three-year-old beat 
the best four-year-old in May at sixteen or eighteen pounds, 
a mile, and a mile and a half at twenty or twenty-one 
pounds, and in the autumn at ten pounds. I think many 
horses are never better for courses up to and under two 
miles than as three-year-olds in October and November. 
Dulcibella and Promised Land were never so good after 
that age, though they were both very sound animals, and 
ran many times subsequently. 
Having discussed the trial of the yearling, and of older 
horses, it may be well before entering into our next topic, 
to glance at private trials in contrast with public form; 
the latter, the great test of a horse’s merit with the majority 
of the lovers of the turf. 
The staunch attendant at race-meetings will on all occa- 
sions look for the winner in public form. He diligently 
searches his “ Ruff’s Guide,” or ‘ Racing Calendar,” and from 
one or the other, it must be allowed, sometimes finds 
what he looks for. But the owner or trainer believes 
implicitly in private trials; and these, if properly and ably 
managed, are the safer guides. For in racing to obtain 
knowledge, you run with too many; whilst in trials, with 
only a few: and added to this, which I think is an ad- 
vantage, in the latter you have the undoubted benefit of 
secrecy. Before running you can by trials, gauge collaterally 
the merits of horses that have run, whilst no one else has 
any knowledge of the merits of your own horses until 
they have appeared in public, 
