I of course went down and met my trainer at the Stand. After a little conversation, we cantered off to the place where the trial was to come off, and stationed ourselves at the spot fixed for the winning-post. He then gave a signal, and shortly I saw four horses galloping towards us and keeping pretty fairly together until perhaps about two lengths off, when one of them came away from the others, leaving them almost as if they were standing still. "Well," I said, "of course I don't know what the weights are, but that is as hollow a thing as I ever saw. What horse is that?" I asked. To my intense surprise, he said, "Vulcan." "How in the world did you get him to gallop?" said I. "That's rather a curious story," replied the man. "We found it out quite by accident. I was away last week for a day or two looking at some very promising yearlings in Dorsetshire, and Jackson (the head lad) took out the string, riding Vulcan as hack. They were exercising on the Bury side, and a boy who was going rook-tending passed by. Boy-like, when he saw the horses cantering, he blew his horn--to try to give them a start, I suppose. None of them minded it except Vulcan, and he clapped his legs under him and bolted off with Jackson as hard as he could go. When I came back next day he told me about it, but did not seem to think anything of it. However, it struck me differently, so I went and found the boy and told him to come to me the next day with his horn--which he did. I took the string out, and told the boy to blow as we passed him. He did so, and Vulcan again bolted clear away, past all the other horses. So I felt sure I had found out how to make him go, and to-day if you noticed (which I had not) a boy blew a horn as they passed him and the horse again came away, though the others did their best, and he was giving them from 2 lb. to 4 lb."
"You certainly have found out how to make him gallop," I said; "but I don't see how you are always to have a trumpeter about after him." "I think it can be managed," he replied. "I want you to enter him for the Handicap Steeple Stakes at the next meeting. He will only have a feather to carry, and at the time of the race, if you could be with the boy about the T.Y.C. winning-post, and, as the horses come by, tell him to blow, it won't be noticed in the least."