"Mostly," Carlton Mackrell replied, crumbling his bread thoughtfully, "though a few are sad, and many sordid." He went away that night, knowing that he should have kicked himself for a sweep in encouraging Gay in her new passion, for the scales had already fallen from his eyes as regarded Trotting, but, doting on the girl as he did, her wish was law to him, while the prospect of getting her to himself while Chris was racing elsewhere, was too great a temptation to resist. And after all, why should she not have her fling? She could afford it, and the time she put in with the noxious Professor must be dull enough in all conscience. When at last, excited and happy, Gay betook herself to bed, she dreamed of new records created by her horses, and saw her sideboard covered with cups, king over which reigned the Blue Riband of Trotting, the Champion Gold Vase. CHAPTER IV "A RACING MAN" Right on the top of Epsom Downs, and "far from the madding crowd," as he expressed it, was Chris Hannen's training stable. A pretty red-and-white house, gabled, with old-fashioned diamond-paned windows, it stood at the top of a lawn (on which in the summer Chris played sundry hard sets of tennis to keep himself fit), surrounded by trees which served as a protection from the prevailing winds in the winter. So keen and pure, indeed, was the air on the Downs, that when he took the house, Chris renamed it "The Breezes," and as a training centre the position was ideal. Immediately outside the front gate were the Downs to gallop over, while behind the house was a spacious schooling-ground, with fac-similes of all the fences to be met with on a race-course. They were always kept stiffly built-up, too, for it was a sound maxim of Chris's never to allow his horses to get slovenly in their jumping, through being practised over weak fences. He knew from experience that horses so indulged were very apt to "chance" their fences in public, and races were not won under such conditions. Therefore every attention was paid to his schooling-ground, and the percentage of winners turned out from the little stable was wonderful considering the strength of it, and bore testimony to the painstaking way in which they were prepared. Chris owed much of his success to a knowledge of the art of placing his horses where they could perform to the best advantage. He sometimes had a difficulty in persuading the owner of a bad horse that he would never win the Grand National with it, and on one or two occasions, having done his best with hopeless cases, their owners had removed them to another trainer, only to discover the truth of Chris's judgment, and the folly of incurring further expense in vain attempts to win races.