THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID , Sfl?- BRKSSEAJO) AIT WDO : ". ! \ SCOTT AND S E B R I G H T. W6n^ NWDU BY THE DRUID, AUTHOR OF "THE POST AND THE PADDOCK," "SILK AND SCARLET," ETC. REVISED AND RE-EDITED. WITH STEEL ENGRAVINGS. LONDON : FREDERICK WARNE AND CO. BEDFORD STREET, STRAND. CLAY, SONS. AND TAYLOTV BRKAI> STRKKT Hit*. oo PREFACE. A THIRD work of the same class scarcely calls for a preface, except as pure matter of form. In writing it I have adhered strictly to my original plan of endeavouring to fill up from oral evidence some blanks in the sporting history of the last seventy years ; and where I have had the good fortune to meet with an especially well-known character, I have got him, Dick Christian fashion, to give the public the butt end of his mind in the first person. The three books must be taken as a whole, and hence any seeming omissions, or very slight notice of a cele- brated man or horse in the present one, will generally be accounted for by reference to its predecessors. The difficulty of the task has been great, as no two men ever seemed to give precisely the same account of anything, and on some points I have despaired of getting more than an approximation to the exact truth, amid so many conflicting statements. The name of " Post and Paddock" could cause no mistake, but "Silk and Scarlet" deluded a few into iv Prcjace. the belief that it was a contribution to Church Polemics. When I had to think out a third title, I did hope that by adopting the names of two of their most accomplished practitioners as the types of The Turf and The Chase, I ran no risk of being misunder- stood ; but still I found one of my old Rugby school- fellows under the firm belief that by the heading " Sebright" I must be taken to contemplate a treatise on Bantams. As regards the first three chapters, I have nothing to remark, except that I have handled the great winners as nearly as possible in chronological order, and separated man from horse by a pony chapter, which, with about twenty pages more, has already appeared in print. " The Flag" part of the fourth chapter is a mere fragment, for the sake of illustrating the career of one of its most celebrated riders, when steeple-chasing really was a sport ; and both " The Stag" and "The Drag" might have been worked out much more fully if there had been space at command. 10, KENSINGTON SQUARE, June io///, 1862. TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER !. TURF WORTHIES. A word at starting Horse traditions Old sporting writers Eccentric Turf characters Old Q. Colonel Thornton The Swaffham Club Cricketing and archery The dawn of Goodwood The driving era Ascot qualification tickets Doncaster Moor to wit The Prince Regent at Bibury Dr. Cyril Jackson on Bibury and Hunting Dean Milner's interview with Mendoza Sir Tatton Sykes and his sheep tastes His little difficulty with Mr. Baker of Elemore His early days in London His probation in Lincoln's Inn Humours of the Yorkshire shrievalties A word with Lord Thurlow Sir Tatton's race-riding Visits to Doncaster His rides to London The old race of Turfites The old Derby course Early betting The cer- tainties of '17 How they kept the course at Epsom The year of Gustavus and Augusta The Warren Hill parade The Nomination night at York The Leger eve at the Salutation Crutch Robinson's sayings and doings Michael Brunton The old school of Yorkshire trainers : Thuytes His views on tails and training Mark Plews His interview with the Marquis of Queensberry John Smith Mrs. Smith's love for Middleham Old Sykes and his cards inspection- Billy Pierse Mrs. Pierse's training tact His test of two-year-old form Tact in stopping a quarrel His studies in Political Economy The Borodino tip in the bedroom Old Forth Buckle, Robinson, and Chifney Grandfather Day and Tom Goodisson Wheatley and Clift Bill Arnull on money matters William Edwards Plot to. make Orville run away John Jackson Ben Smith Malaprop sayings of Ben Early humours of Bob Johnson First mount on General Chasse His perpetual thirds for the St. Leger His fall at Doncaster Colloquies and correspondence with Mr. Orel The vi Contents. Pilgrim's rest at Gosforth Sam Darling's wastes Mr. Horsley'v, story of Sam Winning the St. Leger on Rockingham John and Sam Day's first pony race Sam in the crate Grandfather Day- John Day as a jockey His race on Amphitrite His waste walk and Danebury discipline Sir John Mills at Stockbridge races- Isaac Day Uncle Sam in the Epsom paddock Uncle Sam on the ^ipe His lecture on wasting His London practice Early tuition of John and Bill Scott Filho da Puta's match Looking over the Squeers lot The sporting bagman Performances of Filho Dis- pute about his name John's riding Life on Sherwood Forest- Forest privileges Birth of Matilda Mr. Petre's career Bill Scott's jockeyship His riding of Attila His amusements Visit to Harro- gate Training of his colt, Sir Tatton Sykes The Whitewall snug- gery Pictures of the cracks The Whitewall dining-room The guests at Whitewall Baron Alderson's visit Old Cyprian Lang- ton Wold The schoolmaster at home "Ben" and the hounds- John Scott's commentaries Pavis and Conolly Isaac Day's descent with Little Boy Blue Jemmy Chappie A word on Nat Job Marson Frank Butler's surprise with The West Colloquy with Isaac Walker on the Moors The Old Victory jacket Last days of Frank Mr. Theobald of Stockwell Camel Mr. Bransby Cooper's opinion of him Stockwell sires Mr. Theobald's love of being in the fashion His dress and dogs Trap horses Trips to Doncaster and Newmarket The late Mr. Tattersall Dislike to betting His entry on the business The yard at Tattersall's Mr. Tattersall's connexion with the Prince Difficulties with H.R.H. about a chal- lenge His Majesty's care for old chums Mr. Tattersall as a hunting man Understanding with highwaymen Sir Clement Dormer in Difficulties The stories of Slender Billy Boiling the exciseman lolly's warning voice, and his execution Parson Harvey Mr. Vernon on long preaching Coaching, dogs, and fists Theatre rows The late John Warde Mr. Tattersall's Derby dinner The first guests Humours of Charles Mathews, sen. Drawing the Derby Lottery Frightening the Chelmsford postboy Mr. Talter- sall as a breeder of blood stock Mr. Tattersall's scrap-book James Ward, R.A. Mr. Fernely Principal pictures His habits Visit to Mr. Herring at Meopham Horse and donkey models The Arab Imaum Mr. Herring's first efforts Other subjects- Interior of his studio Recollections of his "Book of Beauty" Painting Bay Middleton Baron Petroffski His love of sport His wcehorse breeding Racing in Rus^'a Tinli.Iiig doubles pp. 1-94 Contents. vii CHAPTER II. EX MOOR TO WIT. The road to Exmoor Emmett's Grange Mr. Robert Smith's cob breeding Bobby The inn at Simon's Bath Origin of the Exmoor ponies The Dongalas Thoroughbred crosses The first pony sales Mr. Knight's pony stock Their mode ot life Habits and battles of the sires Annual marking oi the hoofs Average of casualties The herdsmen A ride by the Barle On Exmoor Bringing up the ponies The Sparkham pony The Doons of Badgery pp. 95-11 1 CHAPTER III. TURF CRACKS. County rivalry in Arabs Indian blood-sire contract Willesden pad- docks Voltigeur and Sir Edwin Landseer The Willesden staff The selected sires On shipboard Arabs in England Mr. Wilson and Omer Pacha Mr. Elliot on Arab champions Landing of Arabs at Bombay Racing in India Breeds and peculiarities oi Arabs- Tricks of Native dealers The early English cracks Hambletonian John Smith at Streatlam " I see Queen Mab has been with you" The Queen Mab iamily at Streatlam Streatlam trainers Isaac Walker at home Isaac's interviews with Will Goodall The Streat- lam Paddock pets The Yorkshire greys Delpini of the woolly coat Turf doings at Sledmere Sam Chimey in Yorkshire Camillus and Stumps Death of Stumps- An afternoon with Sir Tatton and Snarry Diplomatic relations of Snarry and the Sled- mere sires The DialPs field Swale's wold The Cottage Pasture Cherry Wood End The Craggs Flat The Castle Field The King's Field Across the road and into the Park A little arith- meticThe sire paddocks Old times at Ashton Hall "The best of all good company" Lancashire turf rivals St. Leger sons of Sir Peter The Waxy blood W T halebone at Pet worth The Pet worth stud Blacklock's youth Racing finish of Blacklock The sire and sons of Tramp Lotteiy Peculiar action of Lottery and Tomboy The last of Lottery The Cation tribe Dr. Syntax and Reveller Death of Dr. Syntax Ralph Scottish cracks Sir John Maxwell and "Old Nelson" Canteen and Sprinkell at Carlisle Difficulties SCOTT AND SEBRIGHT. CHAPTER I. TURF WORTHIES. "Mr. Perceval and Lord Sidmouth were Premiers, and that is all that is known of them ; but if they had been great racing men, there would have been hundreds of enthusiasts who would treasure up the minute descriptions in which a Turf writer would have collected all the traditionary stream of knowledge bearing on their physical and mental gifts, on their successes and failures, the way they carried their heads, and the way they turned out their feet." I'LL tell you ^vhat it is, my old friends" A Word at said a candidate, when he had been starting. met at the station, and duly, conducted to a dais at the end of his Committee Room ; " I'm not going to stand up here for a speech to-night, but Pll just come down and smoke a pipe with you." It was six to four on him at once, and the takers had the worst of it on the polling day. Such a homely solution of the start- ing difficulty might make the Jockey Club prick up its ears, and fill the author-world with the direst envy. It suits our own humour to a nicety. We want to settle down quickly into our stride, and tell from our note-book, as of yore, the post and paddock recol- lections of many an old English and Scottish worthy. Our appetite for moralizing is not sufficiently athletic to grapple with the morbid anatomy of The Turf, or B 2 Scott and Sebright. to trace every dark episode in its annals. We simply feel proud, that an institution, so fraught with tempta- tion, and exposed to the ken of so many millions of ignorant or crusty critics from within and from with- out, should continue to furnish us with Premiers, and to show such wonderful fibre and endurance under the chronic onslaughts of that lop-sided morality, which almost denies the existence of an honest owner, trainer, or jockey. Horse Tra- But second-hand homilies are not in ditions. vogue, and nearly every tradition for good or evil has been already moulded into shape. We may have to take the Venerable Bede on trust, when he tells us that in 63 1 the " English first began to saddle horses ;" but the same genius of stable gossip which was at hand to note for posterity how Lord Falkland's son bartered away his father's library for a horse and a mare, has stayed the two centuries well. A rich harvest of facts, down to I'Anson's last Leger orders to Challoner, never to raise his hands from Caller Ou's withers, has been gathered in by its agency, but there is still much work for the gleaner. And if our version of some events differs in a measure from that which was given of them at the time, it may be that we have traced them more thoroughly to the fountain head, when all motive on the part of the actors for gloss or concealment had long passed away. Old Sporting " 'Tis seventy years ago" is a phrase Writers. o f edge not to be matched now, and we may well not care to go back further. We can still reach by the light of living memory (the only book we have cared much to consult), that great historic age of "Genius Genuine," the Prince Regent, and John Bull. Of thousands of good sportsmen, who rode the hill towards Black Hambleton, on the King's Plate day, to see the judges place 16 out of 31 for posterity behind the Belvoir "Bonny Black," or decide the delicate question between five Marys, we must Turf Worthies. 3 fain be content with the simple record that they were born and died. No newspaper had then made sport- ing its specialty, and the Old Sporting Magazine only began in 1792 to "woo the votaries of Dian and the fre- quenters of Newmarket," w.ith intelligence and " lyric compositions of the sylvan, rustic, and Anacreontic kind." The field of Turf literature had lain compara- tively fallow, and when the writers did begin to work it again, they stuck too much to one kind of cropping. They were careless of the fame of great horses, or considered them to be sufficiently provided for in the Racing Calendar, which extended its earliest favours to Jamaica as well as Great Britain ; and embalmed the Royal Rules of Cockfighting as solemnly as the pedigree of Coughing Peggy, or Skipjack from Old Mother Neesome. Men who had completed a zealous novitiate of folly or eccentricity, and risen to the dignity of a character ; the careless cassock, fonder of brew- ing an October posset than writing a fifteen-minutes sermon, and yet ready, like his ancestors, to melt his last tankard for Church and King ; and the wealthy Corinthian who had run the gauntlet of the coffee- houses before he was three-and-twenty, were the subjects they delighted to honour. The Prince Regent was their Maecenas, Eccentric Turf and Sir Harry Vane their Suwarrow of Characters. the turf. Lord Barry more, who was known as "Crip- plegate," while another brother became " Newgate," and a third owned to a still warmer and more ex- pressive title, was a most fruitful study with them. Inspired by the account of the countryman, who consumed a pound of salt, a cabbage, and a cabbage- net at a sitting, his lordship made a bet Lord Bany- that he would produce a man who was mores Bets, equal to eating a live cat ; and he won by a few yards at Brighton, when he challenged the Duke of York to try who could wade farthest into the sea. Well might his Boswell exclaim, on hearing of his early death, B 2 4 Scott and Sebright. " Could the emotions of grief restore his vital heat, my lamentations should fatigue Echo." Earl Orford's eccentricities, wrote another, " are too firmly indented upon the tablet of the memory, ever to be obliterated from the diversified rays of retrospection," and then feeling refreshed by this prelude, he proceeds, with his usual kindness to give them in detail. Major Topham earned a mention both for the drama's and Snowball's sake. Sir John Lade (who " stood in" with " Leader, the great coach-builder of Liquor Pond Street,") was a fund in himself for them, whether he was driving his phaeton and four across the ice of the Thames, or riding his mule for a thousand pound match over the Ditch In ; and they loved to tell how O'Kelly would fumble among a quire of banknotes just to set the caster, when he had got every floating guinea in the bank. Old Q Sonneteers and satirists all laid violent hands on Old Q, who still stuck to his Picadilly bow window, his green vis-a-vis with black horses and long tails, his Richmond beauties, his muff, and defied them. His body physician had only to look in the Morning Post occasionally to be reminded that he had strictly a life-interest in his patient, and that his prescriptions of a warm milk bath scented with almond powder, and a veal cutlet at 3 A.M., might as well have been posted at Charing Cross. Colonel Thorn- Colonel Thornton's thirst for notoriety ton. was a i so slaked to the full. If he sat down next to Oliver Goldsmith at the Sqavoir Vivre Club, or jumped a five-foot-seven gate, or ran down a hare on horseback, or coursed a bustard, or shot a dotteril, or unhooded Sans Quartier amid the elastic wold breezes round Falconer's Hall, the feat never lacked a chronicler. His greyhound Major, his bea- gle Merryman, and his terrier Pitch were all accepted types of their order ; and Juno, whose fame caused Lord Grantley to pay half-forfeit in a match of thou- Turf Worthies. 5 sands, was the queen of the twenty brace of setters and thirty-five pointers, which composed his "partridge preparations." Lord Orford's kennel was worsted by The Swaffham the Snowball blood over the Wharram Club - Wolds, but the plains of Swaffham had no mightier champion. It was at his bidding, that the club was limited to the number of letters in the alphabet, and each member selected a colour. If The Heath knew well the orange and black cap of the dashing match- maker Grosvenor, the green and white stripes of Foley and Fox, and the mazarine blue of Standish, coursing men watched with equal zest in Norfolk, whether brimstone, quaker, or pompadour would be the steward's cockade for the week. While the turf and the leash thus held Cricketing and their alternate six months' sway, the Archery. Marchioness of Salisbury was tasting the delights of the chase and the quiver. A golden bugle-horn was sometimes the Hatfield prize, and it sounded the reveille for many a county muster of the Woodmen of Arden, the Bowmen of Cheviot Chase, and the Hainault Foresters in their green and buff. While the Essex archers were keeping summer trysts at Fairlop Oak, the Men of Kent knew well how to handle the willow. Earls Winchilsea, Darnley, and two more dashing spirits thought nothing of pitting county elevens against each other at Lord's for a thousand guineas ; and in 1792, fourteen matches were played for that sum, and six for half of it. The cricketing picture of the period is strange to look upon. The players are attired in round hats, knee-breeches, and pig-tails ; the umpires are all frill, and two scorers sit contentedly with slates on a form. Goodwood subsequently achieved re- The Dawn of nown, as the spot where Lillywhite and Goodwood. James Broadbridge first took the hint for their round bowling from Lambert. In 1801 its racing was of a 6 Scott and Scbright* very lowly kind. One writer, in fact, seems to have carried away nothing more than an indefinite idea of " five or six roving tents, and plenty of ice and pick- pockets." Ascot basked earlier in the smiles of royalty ; its sports were regularly opened by beat of drum, and its cords bounded South by E O tables, some fifty strong, and North by four-in-hands. Never were the pigeons more heavily and more openly winged, and one E <9ite, plaintively referring to his rich dividends of the previous year, seemed almost to consider that in a bad summer he was entitled to com- pensation from the Crown on its native heather, for " the poverty of one, the death of a second, and the compulsive abdication of a third." The Driving The new driving era was just beginning Era - to dawn in '93, and the procession of a score of freshly-painted mail-coaches up St. James Street from the Bull-and-Mouth and The-Swan-with- Two-Necks, &c., after the birthday drawing-room, on June 4th, with their drivers and guards in new scarlets, and the horses in parti-coloured streamers, was be- coming one of the most popular sights of the season. The Driving and the Whip Clubs were not then in being. The landlord of the Black Dog, at Bedfont, had no visions for himself or his successors, of eleven teams of bays at his d6or, with Mr. Villebois, Mr. John Warde, and Sir Thomas Mostyn on the box. The Buxton bit, and the Hawke head territ still slum- bered in the brains of their inventors, and the wildest dreams of the future " Baron Stultz," who gained Beau Brummell's love by putting a lOO/.-note into each of his dress-coat pockets, and destroyed 'Schweizer's and Dawson's monopoly by the two hussar-jackets which he begged to make as a favour for "The Seventh," in Lord Anglesey's time, did not as yet compass that double-breasted drab driving coat, with three tiers of pockets, and Spanish five-dollar pieces for buttons, in which Sir Godfrey Webster found no Turf Worthies. 7 followers. Sir Henry Peyton had not brought four greys, or Squire Annesley four strawberry roans with " Harlequin" as off-leader, into fashion ; and a really crack team seldom showed at Ascot, except each horse was of a different colour. Nothing pleased " Farmer George" so Ascot Quaiifi- much as to find that there was a good cation Tickets, entry for his four-mile Hunter Plate. His Majesty on his white horse, which did duty long before Hob was foaled, never missed the Windsor Forest Meet, on Holyrood Day (September 26th) : and until the rnelaii^- choly twilight of his powers stole on, he cared quite as much to calculate how many of the horses were about to try for their ten qualification tickets, as to look at his hounds and men. Owners or grooms might ride them, but it was a sine qua non that the Royal Hunts- man should see them, both at the uncarting and the take of the deer. It made no matter how forward they might be during the run, if both those cardinal rules were not complied with. If three horses suc- ceeded in winning their tickets at the end of a severe chase, it was thought to be a good day's work ; but in an ordinary run, very few failed, and Mr. Davis has granted one, as an especial honour, to a lad on a pony t The early history of the Ascot of the Doncaster Moor North has been told so often, that there to wit - is no need for us to go back to the 5/. 5^., which was voted by its corporate body in 1681, for five years, to encourage the sport on their Town Moor. The return list began in 1728 ; and the meetings were held in July, and after shifting all over the summer months, they finally settled down into September, about 1750. Eight-and-twenty years after, the uncle of " Hand- some Jack St. Leger" gave his name to the race, and so the ball has been kept rolling to the present day. In 1 794 the light skirmishes between the mayor and the gamblers began, but His Worship won, and like another Lord Elgin, at Pekin, burnt the E O tables in 8 Scott and Sebright. front of the Mansion House. Less martial mayors succeeded, and in 1825 another civic sally had to be made, or the very mace and meat-jack would have been in danger. The skulking which that defeat en- tailed upon the E Oites exasperated them to such an extent, that they joined forces with the thimble- riggers, and on Monday, September 1/j.th, 1829, was fought that sixteenth " decisive battle of the world," on Doncaster Moor, between the " Confederates," with legs of tables on the one side, and His Worship, with mounted constabulary, militia, yeomanry, volunteers, and a posse comitatus on the other, which eventuated in a series of exciting chases and prodigies of private valour, whose recital still furnishes many of the older inhabitants with an annually lengthening story over their wine and walnuts. The Bibury Club was also in great force each June, with Lord Sackville, the Hon. George Germaine, Delme Radcliffe, Ferdinando Bullock, and " Splitpost Douglas" (an undying name conferred on him by the Prince Regent himself) at the head of its silks. It was there, too, that John Scott, when quite a little Oxford lad, had his first glimpse of Sir Tatton in the The Prince Re- saddle. The Prince Regent seldom failed gent at Bibury. t o s how, and never passed the gate of Christ Church without calling upon his old tutor, Dr. Cyril Jackson. On one occasion he presented himself in his full Club uniform of green coat, buckskins, and top-boots. The Dean was as cordial as ever, but he felt, that in those cloistered precincts, discipline must Dr. Cyril Jack- ^> e maintained even with The Heir Ap- son on Bibury parent. His stately hint at parting was and Hunting. Qn thig w i se : _ 7V0W, remember I'm always glad to see you, except when you're dressed for Bibury, and then I don't know that Your Royal High- ness exists'' Racing was a different matter, but the Dean did not in his heart object to hunting, and rather held the belief that a few fast men were not without Turf Worthies. g their use to the hard readers in a large college, by giving them something to talk about. In fact, with rare and beautiful candour, he went so far as to say to Lord Foley, at the beginning of an October term : " Well, yoti've come back amongst us, my lord ; I suppose y oiive brought your red rag with you" Hence under his dynasty, and before the Duke of Bedford's political "crops" became legion, or the Duke of Rutland's raven wig was voted the best scratch in New Bond Street, those who wanted a gallop with Lord Sefton could do the thing correctly, and have their pigtails powdered for the field, after morning chapel, in peace. Dean Milner, the President of Queen's, had also rather scandalized the Cambridge dons at this period, by the report that he had, on crossing over in the packet boat from Hull to Barton, been observed by curious eyes to make his way towards Dean Milner - s Mendoza, and enter, with his wonted interview with energy, into a long conversation on box- Mendoza. ing with him. However, he would brook no admoni- tion on the point, and curtly replied to his ques- tionists : "Ak! I knew he was at the head of his profession, and I wanted to get something out of kirn!' Mendoza's conqueror, Humphreys, had (as Tom Cribb did afterwards) retired into the coal line, near the Temple, and Mendoza, after joining a party of " The Fancy " at the Lyceum, had accepted office as a sutler in the Notts Militia. The regiment was then (1798) encamped on Dorlington Heights, and " Jack Musters," who was considered, when blue coats and leathers came in, to divide with Brummell the honour of being the best dressed man on town, was helping, as ensign, to keep the coast from Bridlington to Spurn Point. When the Dean and the Professor held Sir Tatton Syke3 their discussion, Sir Tatton Sykes was a and his Sheep ' young banker in Hull, and employing fo Scott and Sebnght. his intervals of business between the camp and his Leicesters. Seven years before, Barton Ferry had been a memorable spot to him in connexion with his first purchase of ewes. He had been smitten at twenty-one with a desire to have some pure Bake- wells from the late Mr. Sanday's flock ; and after selecting half-a-score at twenty guineas apiece, he met them afterwards at Lincoln, where they arrived from Holmpierrepont by waggon, and drove them home in person, a three days' journey, to Barton. He soon became a ram-letter, and September, 1861, was the fifty-eighth anniversary of his show ; and until he was upwards of eighty, he never- missed his annual June ride into the Midlands, to Burgess's, Buckley's, and Stone's. This love of Leicesters has always fought hard for supremacy with thoroughbreds at Sledmere. It peeped out in the naming of the bay colt, " Holmpierrepont," on which Sim Templeman in his seven-stone days was beaten in a canter, at York, by the dam of Charles XII. ; and a somewhat expensive complication arose because of it at Cat- & Little Difficulty terick. Mr. Baker, of Elemore, in his with Mr. Baker chagrin at being defeated for a Hunter's of Elemore. Sta j^ construed sir Tatton's gallant wave of his whip to the ladies on the Stand, into an expression of triumph over himself, and accord- ingly made matters so hot for him at Mr. Robert Collings's sheep sale, that he had to pay 156 guineas for the shearling Ajax. His Early Days The forty miles behind his ewes from in London. Lincoln was as nothing in Sir Tatton's eyes, as he had walked from London to Epsom and back .to see Eager's Derby in '91, starting at four on that June Thursday, and landing back at Lamb's Conduit- street about eleven at night. Next year he rode down to see Buckle win it on John Bull, and he never went to Epsom afterwards. He had first looked on London as a Westminster boy, with his brothers Turf Worthies. \ i Mark and Christopher ; and it was a cherished recol- lection with the three, that after often lingering for that purpose at their tailor's, in Bolt Court, they once caught a glimpse of Dr. Johnson, as he handed a visitor to her carriage. In Sir Tatton's case, a pro- bation with Messrs. Farrar and Atkinson, the solici- tors of Lincoln's Inn Fields, followed hard upon Westminster and Brasenose. Edwin as Jemmy Jumps, Ranelagh, or the rope-dancing at Sadler's Wells, where a pint of punch, " and very good punc> too," was dispensed to every box visitor, after the third act, might be the evening's amusement, but the young clerk had no easy time of it by day. When he was not indirectly fostering his future Holmpierre- pont tastes among the sheep-skins in the office, he was dutifully bearing the green bag after Mr. Farrar to Westminster Hall, or to consultations His Probation in at chambers, in one of which Erskine Linc oin's inn. and the two Scotts were engaged. Holroyd was then great as a special pleader, Kenyon and Buller were on the Bench, and Thurlow's tenure of the Great Seal was rapidly waning to its close. Hullock and Bayley were still hard working stuffs, but Sir Tatton met them both in their ermine, when it became his turn to put four bays into the " Chame- leon carriage," at York Assizes. That wonderful county conveyance was popularly supposed to have heard some of " The Squire's " best hunting stories, as he conveyed his learned charges and his chaplain to and from the Castle, and to have been the scene of that inward resolve to challenge Clinker four miles over Leicestershire with dasher, which he reduced into his own queer manuscript before he had been ten minutes in court. It is also in the recollection of some of its annual masters, how at Humours of the the magistrates' dinners, Baron Hullock Yorkshire invariably proved himself fonder of two Shrievalties. bottles than one, and quizzed " my Brother Bayley," 1 2 Scott and Scbright. whenever he lighted by mistake on his special bottle of toast-and-water ; and how strict the latter was with Sir Tatton and every other High Sheriff about conducting him home to his lodgings after a late sitting, lest, as he was wont to phrase it, "there should be an assassin behind the door." While these stones were current of the Puisnes, Lord Thurlow earned no mean fame in the eyes of Sir Tatton and the Holderness men by his conduct in the little affair of Spaxton Vicarage. The Chancellor A Word with had sworn up to his usual mark, when a Lord Thurlow. y Oun g clergyman (Mr. Jaques) encoun- tered him on the sands at Scarborough, and asked him, without the smallest introduction and with a very slight preface, for the then vacant living. " But I wont go about my business!' rejoined the intrepid divine, " and whafs more, it now becomes my duty, as a clergyman, to reprove you for swearing" The man of the awful eyebrows was fairly brought to his bear- ings, at last. " Will you, indeed?" he began; but " hang it y I see yotire a good fellow you shall have it," was the rest of the sentence, and the Chan- cellor shook hands over it and kept his word. sirTatton's But we must glance off from these Race-riding. WO olsack recollections to the saddle, and the "orange body, blue sleeves, and cap" of Sled- mere, in which the then Mr. Tatton Sykes won his maiden race, on his brother's Sir Pertinax, at Beverley. "Bob Lascelles," of Thirsk, was second, and Sir Henry Boynton, Mr. Burton, and " Hamlet Thomp- son's " father were in the ruck. Sir Tatton had on that occasion to ride I3st, but eleven was his regular racing weight, and he scaled ten-and-a-half over Morpeth, at a pinch. No one ever loved a mount better, and he rode until he was above sixty for any one who asked him, without a thought about fatigue or distance. On one occasion, after riding 63 miles from Sledmere that morning he was second to Mr. Turf Worthies. 1 3 Lindow (half-brother to Mr. Rawlinson, the owner of Coronation), in the four-mile Macaroni Stakes, at Pontefract, slept at Doncaster that night, and was beaten in another four-mile heat race against " Split- post Douglas," at Lincoln next day. Twice over he journeyed from Sledmere to Aberdeen, with his racing jacket under his waistcoat, and a clean shirt and a razor in his pocket, for the sake of a mount on the Marquis of Huntley's Kutusoff, and Sir David Mon- crieff 's Harlequin, when the Welter Stakes was the greatest race in Scotland ; and without stopping to dine went back to sleep at Brechin that night, and reached Doncaster after a six days' ride, just in time to see Blacklock beat for the St. Leger. Kutusoff, whom he thought to be decidedly the best he was ever on, did not win that bout, but the victory in " the white and black cap " of Sir David, in '22, squared up his Scottish luck. The 360 miles were done, principally in the forenoon, on a little blood mare, and with the exception of a slight stiffness she seemed no worse. Caller Ou's St. Leger was the seventy- visits to Don- sixth Sir Tatton had seen, with only one caster - break, from illness, in Charles XII.'s and Euclid's year ; and he lodged for forty years with a cow-keeper in Sheffield Lane, who offered him a bed by accident, when he arrived late one night, and not another roost- ing place was to be had in the town. When Tom Carter died in 1854, he ceased to ride to Doncaster ; but when Tom was at his side, they used to meet at Pocklington, and come through between four and four, and sleep at Booth Ferry on the Cup evening. The first of his rides to London was in His Rides to 1805, when he sat for his portrait to Sir London. Thomas Lawrence in the scarlet coat, and black silk breeches, &c., which formed the evening costume of the Castle Howard Hunt. Sir Mark and Lady Sykes, who are also in the group, returned from the easel to 1 4 Scott and Scbright. the North with him. It was Christmas week, and his little blood mare required sharping twice a-day, but after spending two evenings with the carriage party at Eaton and Newark, her rider supped with them at York on the third. The ride three-and-forty years after, to Mr. Grant's studio was accomplished quite easily in June, partly on the black horse (by Colwick, from Lord Chesterfield's grey mare, Mad Moll), which with its rider numbered 108 years, when Sir Tatton was last on him at the cover side, and partly on the chestnut Revenge, by Recovery ; and a peep at Buck- ley's and Burgess's beguiled the way. Death and time combined had wrought a mighty change among the familiar faces of " Sportsman's Hall " between those two visits. Colonel Mellish, who commanded the Prince's crack " German troop," in The Old Race the Tenth, and whom a few can still re- of Turfites, member raising his white hat ironically to his friends in the Grand Stand, as he sat behind his four browns, and saying, " If Sanchos beat, I hope some of you will take me for a coachman" had died in his prime. Martin Hawke, of whom it was told that he always clove the air with his hand, whenever he saw a magpie, had failed to avert the omen. With- in a year of each other, Sir Charles Turner, who swore by King Fergus, Sir Hedworth Williamson, who twice had good reason to bless his " saucy Arethusa " when the Derby were over, Mr. Wentworth, whose Chance found few save Haphazard to beat him, and Mr. Gascoigne, the great liegeman of the Delpini blood, had been laid under the turf of their hearts, and scarcely a jockey save Sammy King was living, who had begun the century at York or Epsom. The Old Derby Up to that very visit the Jockey Club Course. authorities had been faithful in practice, as John Scott and nearly all the elder trainers and jockeys are in heart to the Old Derby Course, with its nice gentle rise of three-quarters of a mile, which Turf Worthies. 1 5 " nearly settled the thing before Tattenham Corner ; ' and it is somewhat remarkable that Sim Templeman should have won the last Derby and Oaks on Cos- sack and Miami over it, and opened the new era with another double benefit on Surplice and Cymba. Betting had been as tardy in its growth Bettincr as the American aloe, during the first few years of this eventful interval. Owners were ready enough to put down money for a match, but did not care to speculate deeply about other people's horses. Much of that spirit still lingered which had made Lord Grosvenor offer to match any three out of his stable against the same number of the Duke of Bedford's for ten thousand ; but till bookmaking* gradually became a profession, getting the odds laid was always a matter of difficulty, and it was told as quite a marvellous thing, that Sir John Shelley should win nine thousand guineas on Phantom's Derby in iSii. Another kind of ring had risen so high in '17, when Molyneux was open to " fight any man born of woman bar Tom Cribb," that the first wits of the day flocked round Incledon at Tom's anniversary Tavern dinner near St. James's Square, to hear Edmund Kean return thanks for the drama and take a second in "All's well!' It was in this year, that the The Certainties two greatest certainties in the North and of >J 7- South came to nought. The first favourite Student was beaten to a standstill at Epsom by his own " valet'' Azor, and, like him, the mighty Blacklock was also snapped by the very last horse in the betting at Don- caster. Still, despite these turns for the fielders, the betting was at least forty per cent, below that of the two preceding seasons. Chester seems to have been the one bright exception. Such was the crush and excitement during the heats, that " two ladies fainted and two gentlemen betted over them, two course- clearers were knocked down, and nobody picked them up." 1 5 Scott and Sebright. How they Kept This difficulty about course-clearing the Course at effected an important alteration at Ep- Epsom. som j n tne p r i nce Regent's day, it was the custom for the royal party to leave the Grand Stand, and lunch with Mr. Ladbroke the banker at Hedley, as soon as the Derby was over. The trainers and spectators whiled away this interval between two and four, by dining in the town or the tents ; and hence the running for the plates was conducted, like those memorable evening sittings at the Old Bailey, in a very vinous mist. There was not much value received by the authorities after dinner from the Surrey labourers, who got eighteen-pence per diem to " make a waie for the horse-race ; " and re- gard for human life called loudly for reform. The crowd broke in when Gustavus and Reginald "worked together from end to end in the Derby, as if it was run a match." Buckle's horse stared about him as Russborough did in a similar dilemma, and the old man's nerve rather went ; while Sam Day, who kept close at his girths, thus graphically de- scribes their journey from Tattenham Corner, " We wound in and out, for all the world like a dog at a fair." If Sam's shabby little grey, which was purchased The Year of ^ or a P onv at Hampton Court, was not Gustavus and worthy of his steersman, .Robinson proved Augusta. to the world next day, that Augusta was one of the soundest and best mares that ever dared to make all her own running and win the Oaks. There was no little disappointment that autumn, when the terms of a match could not be arranged between her and Jack Spigot, on whom Bill Scott had just verified that favourite axiom, which came booming out to the end of his days, whenever turf- scale rogueries were mooted : " Only give me a good horse, and quicksilver be hanged" If Augusta did not measure conclusions with the St. Leger winner, she Turf Worthies. 1 7 defeated Emilius (of whom Robson, whose word was law, declared that there " had been no such horse since the days of John Bull ") three years after, in nearly as heavy a match as that between " the hen- speckled Sultan " and Banker ; but neither she nor Jack were in the great A.F. race, that First October, for the Grand Duke Michael Cup. Its Royal donor stayed with the Duke of Rutland at the Palace during the races, and saw Sam Day win it for Lord Grosvenor on Michaelmas, with four others not beaten a length. The afternoon parade on Easter Sun- The Wan-en Hill day was looked forward to year after Parade, year at Newmarket, as the great Warren Hill prelude to the first Craven meeting of the morrow, and " half Cambridge came over." Trainers who never took kindly to the Robsonian system of having their horses out at four, morning and afternoon, for six months of the year, relaxed their code for that day ; and vied with each other in their new lad-liveries. The Jersey and Shelley lot of Tiny Edwards, than whom none knew better when to slip it into them, and when to let well alone, was distinguished as the " brown, and white metal buttons." The Duke of York's, under the command of Frank and Will Butler's father, formed " the drab division ;" blue with red waistcoats marked the approach of Lord Foley's ; drab with red and white stripes (borrowed from Tom Panton The Squire of Newmarket, for whom Jim Robinson's father trained) of the Brothers Chifney, with the jaunty and wide-awake Will at their side ; while the Heath in- separables, Lord Henry Fitzroy and Robson, headed the long Indian file of the Grafton grey-coats and leather-breeches. As time went on those two clerically- dressed figures were seen no more, and Bob Stephen- son was in command for the Duke as well as Lord Egremont. Boyce was there on behalf of his good master from Belvoir, John Howe represented the c 1 8 Scott and Sebright. Sowerby interest, and Cotton that of Lord Verulam ; while Cooper was on duty for " Payne and Greville," and sturdy little Pcttit for Mr. Stonehewer, whose love of neatness extended to having his boot-soles blacked. Nearly all of that trainer band have passed away, and so has the King's Chair Pond, with the odd practice to which it gave rise, of taking the horses to the troughs to drink, and giving them a final canter " to warm the water." The Nomination The same afternoon produced nearly Night at York. as g rea t a Yorkshire parade at Hamble- ton ; but the spirit of racing never glowed more brightly at " Old Ebor," than on the evening of each New Year's Day. The trainers held their nomination dinner, over which John Scott for many years presided, at Sylvester Reed's of the Old Sand Hill Tavern ; and all that varied turf artillery of talent which had been laid up in ordinary since Richmond, was brought into action by night-fall at The Star in Stonegate. Lord Kennedy, Mr. Rhodes Milnes, Mr. Milbanke, and Sir William Maxwell could have hardly been happy away ; and the Earl of Darlington never failed to drop in and do a smart stroke of business on the St. Leger. When that great problem of the Northern year was about to be solved, the scene was changed to The Leger Eve at the front, and the long room of The the Salutation. Salutation. Those who were there to mark the feverish anxiety of the crowd as the loyal phalanx of " Croft's men" bore up for their stable against the dashing assaults of Mr. Gully in his kerseymeres and top-boots with Crockford and his curious half-grammar, the terrible Justice, and the reckless Ridsdale, to aid him could never forget it more. Kirby was waiting for an innings, and, as often as not, scoring badly when he got one ; Tommy Swann (who detested betting with a captain who had a patch on his boot, as much as booking the oclds on a Sun- Turf Worthies. 19 day), and Michael Brunton were doing a safe little game on the quiet, and Crutch Robinson would lean against the outer wall or make his way Crutch R bi n . to the horse-block, and sit there full of son's Sayings his gammon, and yet watching the market and Doin s s - with the eye of a glede hawk. He made it his rule of life to " lay agin the Manchester pick." It might be that it was his peculiar mode of upholding the rival dignity of Staley Bridge, but he never swerved from it. To hot favourites he had a deathless dislike, and as he maintained that it was the specialty of the Man- chester mind not only to back them, but to run after them, when they came on to the course, he found him- self perpetually ministering to its enthusiasm, by laying the odds. " / may just as weel have thee five, pun as anybody else" was the phrase in which he gra- ciously signified his intentions of operating. If anyone said that a horse was dead amiss, or fit to run for a man's life, he never believed it ; and he was equally sceptical about their doing such great things in private. " Nar, nar ! thou knawest a great deal aboot it, I dar say" was his stereotyped reply, when he heard of those marvellous trials, which are so rife before the Derby; and then came his inevitable proposal, " /'// bet thee five pun ; I may as weel have my expenses, &c" This antipathy to favourites was so rooted, that if anything was backed against the field for a large stake, he would invariably stand the latter for five hundred. He seldom drank anything himself, but when he was fairly ensconced of an evening in the Black Bear at Newmarket, he was far from happy if Joe Rogers, who was always staunch to his friends and spaniel, Sam Darling, and a few more of them, did not look in to "pull up the score." His jockeys were not much troubled with orders from him beyond, "Ride as thoo likest, only mind and win" Of all his race- horses he loved best to discourse of Stockport, and he O'Jght to have known his form to an ounce, as he c 2 2O Scott and Sebright. never wearied of trying him on Delamere Forest. His Liverpool was also a favourite theme, but when he boasted about selling him for seventeen hundred, he always wound up the recital with some dark grievance of " thirteen pun for the togs" Michael Any one who conversed with Michael Bmnton. Brunton about horses, was sure to hear of Atalanta. " Bless you" he was wont to say, when they pressed him with modern cracks, " old A talanta would have snuffed them up her nose" Physician was always his delight, more especially for his delicate step, which "wouldn't crush an egg." His betting creed was concise, and based mainly on the principle, that " none are so good to bet with as trainers ; if there are twenty of them in a race they've all got a good horse." He never took less than 3 to I, or laid more than 5 to 2, and if he lost, he watched night and day for his man till he paid him. No one lost with oetter grace, and " Bubbled again /" was his only ebullition. The Old School of The trainers in drab breeches and Yorkshire Train- gaiters of the period were strictly in ers-Thuytes. k eep mg with these old-fashioned odd- dealers. Thuytes of Middleham was quite a character among them, and hailed for a time from Tupgill. It was there that he first enunciated to a friend his great theory of Perpetual Motion. " By the Godlms, I can find out how to save a horse's legs, and mak him run for ever : tak a feed of corn off a day." He was one of the first Northern trainers who adopted long tails, and he did it on the ground that " horses came into His Views on Tails the world with them, and didn't want and Training, besom stumps." He thought a good deal on this subject, and highly approved of the old horse- dealer, who, to all seeming, seldom cared to do more than pass his hand down to the dock. If it was a strong one, he took the backbone for granted, " only a continuation of it, Maister." Turf Worthies. 21 Mark Plews was a mixture of a black- Mark plews smith and a farmer, and if there was a Richmond horse in the St. Leger, he invariably stood it. When Vingt-un from Belle Isle was all the rage, Mark and his wife got on without telling each other, one to win 2^1. for himself, and the other 4/. in part- nership with Mrs. Pierse. These daring ventures got bruited about, and hence when the town express, which was managed on state occasions by sending horses on to Ferrybridge the day before, arrived at midnight with the news of the defeat, one of the large party which sat up for it, could think of no other con- solation than hoaxing " Old Mark." The window was not far from the ground, and the delegate was enabled to report, word for word, the matrimonial colloquy which followed the shout of " Vingt-uris won'' Mark was furious when the truth came out in the morning, and threatened in vain to walk all over Yorkshire, if he could only discover the owner of the voice. He always delivered his mind about His interview man or horse, without fear or favour ; and q u!s ofQuee^s- was looked upon by some as no mean berry. authority. When the Marquis of Queensberry, whose waist was quite as capacious as his own, requested him to come and give him his confidential opinion of Caledonian's chance for the Leger, he mounted his spectacles and took a protracted survey. His rainbow neck he dismissed in silence, and then he broke out with, " He wants what you and me has gitten, my Lord hinder ribs, hinder ribs ;" and in went his spectacles to their case once more. The Marquis had John Smith for his Tohn gmith trainer both in Scotland and at Middle- ham, and then he went to the Duke of Cleveland at Raby. In all these wanderings, his heart still turned to the Streatlam of his younger days (wh^re he first wooed and won his Peggy, who was housekeeper at 2 2 Scott and Sebright. the Castle), and the lot he trained for Lord Strath- more. If a friend came to see him, as soon as " only some thin ribs of mutton and a craw pie," which is, being interpreted, a most excellent dinner, was over, his first toast was to that master's memory. " He was the best master" he used to say, " that I ever served ; he made me a Tory" Still his loyalty to his dead Lord was quite equalled by that which one of his own Middleham stable lads showed towards himself. As he was setting out with his horses for Lancaster, he suddenly recollected that he had left his hair-brush, and sent Jem Alderson, alias "Botty"* (who was under-valet at the time to Cartwright, alias " Harro- gate,") in immediate search of it. "Botty" began doing up his mare, and for a time quite forgot his commission ; and then snatching the brush out of the dressing-case rushed wildly after the lot on the road to Kettlewell, which was the first stage. The horses were nearly done up for the night, when one of the lads ran to tell his master that they had caught a glimpse of " Botty," running in his shirt-sleeves, and without his cap, and brought him out of the inn with a rush, under the firm impression that some disaster had happened at home. "Please sir, I've brought you your hair-brush," said the gasping lad ; but " Get into the stable, and don't let any one see that I've such a fool about me" was his only welcome. However, Smith gave him the fullest credit in his heart, and had him con- veyed the eighteen miles back in a miller's wagon, which happened to be passing. Such perseverance was certain to succeed, and when " Botty" became too heavy and had saved a good deal of money from presents, he became groom to Mr. Christy, the great hat-maker, and was eventually placed in one of his farms. Smith was severe with his lads, but he always In the Yorkshire dialect, "above himself.' T^t,rf Worthies. 2 3 hedged by saying during the ash-plant process, " Thou' It come to me in ten years' time, and thank me on thy knees for saving thee from the gallows? "Only cruel to be kind" had never a finer exemplification. His " poor Peggy" was a rare helpmate, but she still sighed for Middleham (where their charity and kind- ness will long be remembered), during her Raby sojourn. "Anything that comes from Mrs. Smith's Love Middleham must be fed at all ends," for Middleham. was her spouse's invariable remark, when he found her giving an apple out of the window to Maria, the dam of Euclid and Theon, or any of her especials, which would regularly stop to claim it on their way from exercise ; and he lived under a moral conviction, that " poor Peggy and Maria betwixt them will break all the glass about the place." The wish of the former to return to Middleham was fulfilled, and she and her John died at their house directly opposite " Croft's old stables," from whence the four first horses for the St. Leger, and three of them Comuses, set out for Doncaster in Theodore's year, and had their deeds recorded on their trainer's marble. Tommy Sykes was a great advocate for long steady work on Langton Wold, and he could O ids y kesand have stayed any distance over cards, his Card in- He was of grim aspect, and most rigidly spection. orthodox in his silence during the game, except when he felt it salutary to say to his partner, " Thoo mak-s a very poor tew of it? A Malton landlady, who knew his forte, implored him to counsel and shield her husband, when he had got up a little card party on the sly. " Do go up, Mr. Sykes',' she said, " and see after my poor Jacky ; I fear he's only got among a baddish lot? A very few minutes satisfied Tommy how matters stood, and he was shortly enabled to descend with a clear conscience, and beg the anxious wife " not to trouble yourself, for Jacky s the biggest rogue amongst them? 24 Scott and Sebright. Pierse had a wife who looked BUI Pierse still more wisely after his interests, and made the most admirable Clary wine. It was, in fact, quite a moot point with him, whether he did not prefer it to that pipe of port which Sir William Gerard sent him when he won the Oaks on his Oriana, and which, with another from the same hand, lasted him his life. His belief that " If I ever saved a shilling, my wife saved sixpence," was fully verifiec ifter his death, as his son Tom succeeded to a stable full of horses, with six hunded bushels in the corn chamber, and no debts. For three years he had no luck at Belle Isle, and was about to migrate to Hambleton, when his wife entreated him to stay "just one year more," and then came their harvest home. Mr. Kay, the banker, who used occasionally to invest a fiver on his advice, admired his character so much, that he was always believed to be the invisible friend, who presented him with the place. Billy was never known to quarrel with any one in Richmond, and he was so popular with the little freehold owners round there, that by way of homage they used to lead manure on to his land, and top-dress it without leave. Mrs. Pierse took a large share in the management of the stable, and her husband always said that she had the quickest eye of the two for finding out if a horse was lame. She was, in short, the exact counter- part in the North, of Grandmother Day, with her walking-stick and black crunch bonnet, in the South. Mrs. Pierse's Morning after morning, she would stand Training Tact. at t h e door, with her hands behind her, marking each horse as it left the yard ; and if there came, " / say, turn him back, mun, that horse is leame, I see" in the broad dialect of Yorkshire, there could be no mistake about it. In domestic matters, Billy never interfered, except, firstly by enforcing a goose every Sunday during the season (which he never thoroughly believed in, " except my wife roasts it ") Turf Worthies. 2 5 and secondly by always buying and spreading out triumphantly on the dresser, when it arrived, just twice as much meat as was wanted whenever, purse in hand, he had chosen to sally forth to market. On this one point he was so proof to the last against all experience, that the poor people who shared the over- plus began to think that his good soul of a wife secretly backed him in the habit. She was always her own almoner, and her plain useful education and sound sense made them quite a pattern couple. The excessive shortness of his legs rather spoilt her Billy's seat on horseback, and he could not always use them to advantage when he was wasting. Jacques and Ben Smith walked with him once from Lancaster to Ashton Hall, on the morning of the races, but they were obliged to leave him behind at last on the road side, and he returned rather crestfallen in a cart. Riding and training had taught him the great general rule, which he scarcely ever found to His Test of Two- fail him "If a two-year-old wins by year-old Form. half-a-neck, or even a length, with difficulty, depend upon it the whole squad's bad." As a powerful finisher and judge of pace, especially when he was on Haphazard, he stood in the first rank, and although he was such a one to dodge the lads, and knee their elders, when he had a chance, he was looked up to as quite a Lyndhurst in the profession. Mr. Tomline, the judge at Richmond, used often to tell how deftly he stopped a quarrel between Field and Mangles, who had ridden a very punishing finish, and got to high words about the issue. Trotting back Tact in Stopping past the chair to weigh in, he called out, a Quarrel. " How far did I win, Mr. Tomline?" " You, Mr. Pierse f why you were beaten three lengths" was the response ; and even the belligerents could not help laughing when they saw Billy's polite bow, and heard his dry rejoinder, " Thank yon, sir ; that alters the case materially" 26 Scott and Sebright. His whole book reading was confined to the Bible and Smith's Wealth of Nations. It was calculated that he had gone through each of them about thirty times, and they were his joy and solace to the last. With his arms folded on the table he ms otuciies in *** Political ECO- would study Political Economy sternly nomy. f or i lours together. Although he gained largely by always paying ready money, he did not scruple, as we have seen in meat matters, to openly violate all the most cherished doctrines of supply and demand ; but, armed with arguments at every point,, he would occasionally open his mind to Sir Tatton, even when they were both dressed to ride, on the influx of bullion and the medium of exchange, sub- jects which threatened at times quite to weigh him down. Why John Day should be the only " Honest" man in the world also puzzled him as sorely, as he did his own friends with the question, whether, in a commercial point of view, " the French will ever get us on to all-fours ?" and he carried out his principle of selling in the dearest and buying in the cheapest market, by giving a few of the cordmen in Manches- ter an occasional stable tip, and carrying back as many yards of corduroy as breeched his stable lads for the year. The Borodino Mr. 1^ was tne repository o f one of Tip in the Bed- his most cherished secrets. Billy went room. over to ^j ne anc j s j ee p a t hj s house, and after a very pleasant evening was ended, his host heard unmistakeable signals of distress in one of the guest-chambers. On entering, he found a little bare- headed figure, in a long nightgown, which turned out to be Billy, pacing about the room, quite on the fret, because " my wife has forgotten to put up my night- cap, Mr. Joliff, and I can't sleep without one." He was soon fitted with a substitute, and his peace of mind was restored. " TJicsc are very higJi beds of yours, Mr. Joliff'' he observed, " / cant get in, da T^crf Worthies. 2 7 give me a leg up? This was also done with as much solemnity as if the St. Leger bell was ringing. Billy was tucked in, and felt at once warm and grateful. "Mr. Joliff" said he, "you've been very kind and neighbourly to me to-day, Mr. Joliff- / wish to make' some return it goes no further Borodino's a race- horse Goodnight, Sir!" He never betted, and hated to hear of either trainers or jockeys doing much that way ; and his last mount was on Sir Walter, at Richmond, in 1819, for Col. Cradock, who thought very highly of him, and in later years always had him as his carnage companion to Doncaster and back. One of the most striking pictures of him is that in which he and Tom are look- ing at the Shuttle mare, with Simon at her foot. She was originally given to Billy by Sir William Gerard, after she broke her fetlock, and she nearly equalled the fame of Pratt of Askrigg's Squirt mare (twelve of whose seventeen foals turned out well), by throwing nineteen, with Swiss amongst them. Simon proved himself in a rough gallop, as a yearling, to be nearly as good as the three-year-old Canteen, from the Grey- stone In ; but he died very soon afterwards from rup- ture of the heart. Old Forth was another of those trainer- Old Forth jockeys, of which Yorkshire has been pretty prolific, but he became so naturalized at Mit- chell Grove, that the Southrons seemed to claim him. To the last he kept his " Frederick weight," and rode in trials with the same fine patience and tact. He loved to come through with the old one, and con- sidered that " two year olds would do much greater things with each other than threes." Frederick, Little Wonder, and Merry Monarch were all trained by him, and through them he framed the rule, that " if you. try a two-year-old a reeker for a quarter-of-a-mile at even weights with a Derby winner, and the young un cannot win, depend upon it he's not worth backing 28 Scott and SebrigJit. for Epsom." The Goodwood Cup was the race he loved best, and he was sure, that "if a horse wins that really well trained, it is all up with him for the Leger." Even for it or anything else, he would never try more than a mile and a quarter, and if they could get that distance well, he was " quite ready to take the rest on credit." Buckle and Jim Robinson were his jockey idols, and he used to say that he would gladly have given 5OO/. a-year to have the first call of " Old Frank." He delighted to dwell on those finishes in which Buckle brought his horse with such energy on the post, "that the very plates flew into the air." Buckle, Robin- J ohn Da y' s decided opinion about son, and Chif- " Old Frank " was, that if you threw him up in the air in any part of the country, he would be certain to fall on a horse at the post, all ready to begin. His courage was quite on a par with the bull-dog's, which never left his heels ; and when a man nearly twice his weight annoyed him at The Star, it took five or six to choke him off again. His weakest point was his judgment in a trial and on horses generally ; and it was calculated that he must have lost hundreds of pounds by bad hack bargains alone. Still, take him for all in all, Jim Robinson, with his short heads on the post, and Sam Chifney with his mighty rushes, we cannot wonder that the old school of Turfites dwell very fondly on the past, and declare that it was " quite worth all the meeting's expenses to see those three ride." As for Sam, they said that it was equal to a tenner, just to watch him canter an awkward horse. " Of Newmarket" may well be the solitary and stately comment on his head- stone at Hove ; but still our senior jockeys generally acknowledge, and none more cordially than John and Alfred Day, that Jim was "the schoolmaster" from whom they formed their style. Old Chifney rode so long, that he hardly seemed Turf Worthies. to rise in his saddle, and his son as well Grandfather Day as Tom Goodisson carried the practice and Tom to an extreme. Tom suffered from it two Goodisson - or three times on the Heath, and more especially when Grandfather Day, who was two-and-twenty stone, and always the boy for a lark, caught him upon the road after Exeter races, and gammoned him to put on his cap and jacket, fasten his hack to the gigshafts, and ride it as leader for him into Devonport. The crowd, which rolled up like a snowball to see the great sight, frightened the hack by their cheers, and bolting into a shop window, it landed Tom headforemost among a pile of shawls. He rode no more leaders to the day of his death, and never at any period of his life did he look like a jockey, although he was a very good and fortunate one. There was no absence of mind in the saddle ; but if he asked a friend to dine, it was just as likely as not that he would take up a little thumb-piece, walk round the table chewing it in silence, and depart to a glass and a pipe elsewhere for the remainder of the evening. Owing to his height, Wheat- wheatley and ley had much difficulty in wasting, and Clift - although he won the Derby on Prince Leopold and Spaniel, and was entrusted with Velocipede for the St. Leger, the impression left on posterity was, that he had great splay feet, and would always stick them out. Copperbottom was the first horse that Clift looked after, when he went into the Marquis oi Rockingham's stables, under Kit Skaife, and the name well fore- shadowed the future riding and walking powers of the lad. He was forty-four when he received the Fitz- william green jacket, and he held it till he could ride no more, and Harry Edwards succeeded him. Once only did he win the St. Leger, and then it was snatched not out of the fire, but the ditch, into which he and Paulina were driven. The lodge on the north side of Wentworth Park still retains his name, and if no jockey can say ditto to his winning the Derby in a 30 Scott and Sebright. trot, they are equally unable to boast that they ever judged at Ashdown. BiiiAmuiion Bill. Arnull infinitely preferred cock- Money Matters, fighting to coursing, and saving money to both. His friends used to tell him that he would go without victuals for a month, if he saw his way to a sovereign. This feeling grew upon him after he lost an action at Cambridge, and for years, as he reflected on those painful costs and damages, he would remark " I've never swallowed that four hundred yet." To realize when you can was his prevailing idea, and *' I'd put my horse in Button Park," was the mode in which he conveyed it. Robinson could always out- ride him ; but he had a high saddle repute, and quite a mania for winning both in public and private. Hence he would stop the pace so cleverly on the trial horse, that he could invariably win on him, and then blame the lads for not getting theirs out. The thing happened so often, that the Exeter stable at last put some one else up to come right away. He was very gouty, and a wretched walker in consequence, and it was curious to see him get off " his great grey like a giraffe," and helped with a straight leg on to the horse he had to steer. William Ed- William Edwards (who won his maiden \\-ards. race over Newmarket, in 1800), is the Southern Nestor among jockeys ; and he and Sir Tatton had all the wins to themselves on the last day of Doncaster, four years later, one with Gratitude and Lady Brough, and the other with his brother's Sir Pertinax. What Will most grudged losing was the Doncaster Cup, which was then nearly a four-mile race, on Lord Fitzwilliam's Orville. He was a mere feather at the time, and he begged hard for a curb- bridle ; but the trainer knew his colt to be such a slug, that he only sr.id " the farther he rims away the more Plot to make Or- hell beat them" Jackson on Alonzo and vine run away. Shepherd on Sir Solomon thought very Turf Worthies. 3 1 differently, and decided, in a hasty council of war, that it was their bounden duty to make the Leger winner run away. Accordingly they got the lad between them, and one, by sly taps of the whip, and the other by sundry toe administrations, waked up his colt most effectually for him. It was in vain for him to shout when he saw their game, " /'// tell the Jockey Club of you ;" and Jackson finished up the matter, by kneeing him on to the rails. Three hun- dred guineas was Mr. Watt's present to George Edwards for winning the One Thousand on Cara, and that daring horseman well deserved such a sweetener. His brother Harry had still more power, and fairly drove his horse before him, sitting back in his set-to like Robinson, and spurring in front of the girths. No man got himself up better, and when he and San* Darling were side by side, the one might be seen turn-' ing up his cuffs for the fray, and the other pulling down his ruffles. Although Jackson was only one Leger Tohn Tackson short of Bill Scott, and had for many years the finest practice in the North, he just lacked Bill's dash, and with a first-class rider he would ge into difficulties at the finish. John Shepherd was a splendid judge of pace, and very fond, as a young- man, of coming to meetings in a chaise and pair, when others were glad to hack it. Some of his finest races were won on Sir Solomon, whose power of making his own play in a four-mile race was as remarkable as his rider's seat. Shepherd held himself so bolt up- right, that there was quite a hollow in the middle of his back, and he kept his foot straight out before him, to the point of the horse's shoulder. Ben Smith's patience and loyalty were nobly con- Ben Smith spicuous, when he refused to dismount from the Duke of Hamilton's Ironsides, after a horse had broken his leg with a kick, and he won the race as he deserved. It was a deed worthy of the good, 12 Scott and Sebriht. vx O simple-hearted creature, and the connexion with the stable was only ended by the Duke's death. Two St. Legers fell to their lot in the course of it, and it is remarkable that the two he won for Mr. Gascoigne, resulted from the only mounts that gentleman ever gave him. Maiaprop Sayings His Malapropisms formed a fund of of Ben. amusement to the county, and were duly repeated as " Ben's last." When, however, it trans- pired that he had gone forth to commune with Nature at Studley, and had spoken on his return to Middle- ham, of " fine ravenues and turpentine walks," York- shire shook her head, and wouldn't have it. There was plenty of the genuine article without drawing on fancy. An affidavit could have been sworn, if neces- sary, that on more than one occasion he had observed to an owner, " I should say, Sir, tJiat horse of yours is fifteen four or five" " If you II only buy that horse, Sir" he remarked to another, "/'// warrant he II win all the Maiden Plates in Scotland" His only com- ment on three Sir Peters, which Mr. Baillie of Meller- stein showed him, was to the effect : " Pli lay, Sir, thou maans them to be in the rear ;" and he used his favourite adjuration, "By the Lord Harry, that's a fine colt" to such an extent, when Mr. Henry Peirse of Bedale invited him to a similar inspection, that his host might well ask rather tartly after his departure, " What on earth did the fellow mean ' Harrying ' me every minute ?" With all his quiet ways, he did a little of the kneeing business occasionally; but when he began it with Jackson, there came the fierce North Riding challenge : " By thee heart, my lad, thoos try- ing it on. Fll gie it thee" and at it they both went, and after fairly cutting each other's jackets off their backs, returned to scale in peace. Early Humours Bob J ohn son was an equally good- of Bob John- hearted fellow, though much rougher in his speech, full of activity and a quick Turf Worthies. 33 starter, but in far too great a hurry to get home. He was born at Sunderland, and was apprenticed to a quack doctor. This gentleman also did a little in smuggled spirits, and often sent Bob out to his cus- tomers, with two tin cases full of gin on his shoulders. On one of his journeys, he met the Lambton hounds, and his pony becoming excited by the cry, and the flapping of the empty cases, carried him with a tre- mendous cannon against Sir Hedworth Williamson, who was at first disposed to be very angry. However, the lad's enthusiasm under difficulties disarmed the baronet, and he often told the story when Bob had become famous. The budding apothecary soon deserted the herb and spirit business, and after a pro- bation at Ellerker's of Hart's, he become a light- weight at Croft's. Ottrington, who, as he elegantly re- marked, "had tired like muck," in all his other races, was the first St. Leger winner he rode. His orders were to watch Manuella, and when he found his horse living on, and the Oaks mare sinking, he irreverently ex- claimed as he swept past the old Richmond jock, 4< Hoo do ye like me, Mr. Pierse ?" Well might Billy say afterwards, in his anguish, that " for cheek that Bob Johnson beats them all." His first connexion with General Chasse First Mount was brought about rather oddly. Sir on General James Boswell came to see his string, which were at Ashgill for a short time, and consulted with Fobert, as to whom he should get to ride the chestnut, in his maiden race at Liverpool. " Yonder' s Robert Johnson breaking sticks, Sir James ; he's nearly as good as any of them" said Fobert, point- ing in the direction of Tupgill, where the ever- busy Robert then resided ; " he's just the man for him." " In course I can ride kirn" said Bob, when he had been waved up ; " we've nought in, have we, Mr. Fobert f This question was absolutely necessary, as he left everything to his brother-in- D 34 Scott and Seb right. law Watson Lonsdale, and Robert Hill his head lad. Even if any one asked him about a pedigree (which they took care to do pretty often), he gave his in- variable answer, " In course thou knaws, hes by t'aud horse, out of fand meer" However, if he forgot their pedigrees, or rather never learnt them, he gave a pretty vivid sketch of their capabilities when he had scaled in. He had not ridden Chasse" in his trial, and did not therefore expect to find him such a lurcher, and Sir James was equally unprepared for his definition of the chestnut, as " a nice donkey of a divil donkey I tell ther" Still, owners felt great confidence in him, and if Bill Scott carried off four St. Legers in suc- cession, Bob, Mangles, and Ben Smith were the only jockeys who could boast of having won it three years out of four. Relying on this prestige, his friends were wont to consult him at Doncaster as to his chance ; but they never got much more out of him than " /;/ His Perpetual course, thoo may back me to be third likely Thirds for the enough faud place Inevergetfcfrwarder? St. Leger. That was tme enou gh a f ter St. Patrick's year. When the Barefoot St. Leger was run twice over, he held that place each time on Comte d'Artois ; and Emancipation, La Fille Mai Gardee, Bedlamite, General Chasse, and Beeswing only riveted the spell. Bedlamite suffered severely from that terrible shower which almost washed away horse and man during the first parade that was ever made for the great race, and Bob, who was always up early, and away towards the distance to " try his stirrups," resolutely refused to accept the umbrella and great coats which were pressed upon him, and ended, as in General Chasse's case, with making his run too soon. His Fail at He got an ugly fall over Doncaster on Doncaster. the Nutwith day. Trainers were then allowed to ride on the course when the horses were running, and Tom Dawson, in galloping up from the Turf Wor titles . 3 5 distance to encourage the sulky Aristides, ran against him on his pony, and left him lying on his face with the force of the concussion. He picked himself up just in time to hear that Job had beaten the Malton crack, and subsequently informed Tom Dawson of his accident, which, he stuck to it, had been caused by " a great divil with a red coat on a grey meer," and quite fought out the point with Tom, when he ex- plained and apologized. A perfect Ordiana might be made up colloquies and of the scenes between him and the lord Correspondence of Beeswing. They duly decided, after thMr.Ord. accepting sixpence for the purpose from a facetious friend at Ascot, to " let t'aud meer win first, and get shaved afterwards." Again they were heard to take counsel together about the state of Mr. Ord's betting book. " I've taken fifteen sovereigns to two, Robert, about the mare" said that gentleman, most meekly. " Shall I hedge ?" " In course, nowt of the sort" was the prompt answer. " Stan it out ; be a man or a mouse? Once when this comical pair were separated, Bob suddenly felt constrained by a sense of duty to communicate stable intelligence ; and Will Beresford, who used to tell the story in his best style, was re- quested to act as his secretary. " Sir, the meer's weel, I'm weel, we're all weel" was the result of Bob's dicta- tion, and he declined to furnish any other address than " Ord, Esq., Northumberland." It must, however, be explained that the original draft was much more voluminous, and that Bob had thus remonstrated when it was read over to him : " In course, thou knows, Mr. Beresford, I didn't tell thee to put in ' In course* all that number of times. Now, I'll gie it ye plain." After this, he felt it more politic to commit his own feelings to paper, and having left Tupgill with a cause of anxiety upon him, he announced his return to con- valescence at Liverpool, in these spousal words : "Peg, all's well ; Robert Johnson" D 2 36 Scott and Sebright. The Pilgrim's * n ms wasting days Bob was an Rest, at Gos- eminent member of that School of Industry, which met during the New- castle race-mornings in the Servants' Hall at Gosforth. Mr. Brandling liked the custom kept up, and often a muffled troop of Sim, Jacques, Scott, Harry Edwards, Holmes, Garbutt, Cartwright, Lye, Gates, Gray, &c., would be found there about ten o'clock, sipping the warm ale which the butler always had in readiness for them after their three miles' walk from the Grand Stand, and listening, if Bill Scott was not just i' the vein, to Bob Johnson's comments on nags and men. One morning Bob did not get on with his ale, and Mr. Brandling asked him if there was anything else he would like better. " / don't knaw, Sir," he said, " but I should like a bottle of your champeagne" It was accordingly brought, and Bob considered that he put his host up to such a good thing for the day while they were drinking it, that he wound up with " Weel, I think I should like another away with me y Mr. Brandling, to drink your health when Fve won!' His companion protested in vain, but Mr. Brandling was intensely amused, and sided so energetically with Bob, that another was fetched, and duly stuffed into his pocket, and away he went rejoicing, and verified his Gosforth tip by beating Sim cleverly. Jacques turned that Pilgrim's Rest to high account once, as he was in it three times in four-and-twenty hours, and in spite of the butler's request to consider his health, took off about i/lbs. in the time, rather than lose his mount. Two ounces of Epsom salts, a little tea with gin in it, to make him break out freely, a dry biscuit, and a poached egg with vinegar, were all that passed his lips. He excelled as much in wasting as he did in corner-cutting, and if fifteen or sixteen started on a Doncaster morning to Rossington Bridge and back, he and Sim and Jack Holmes would invariably be seen leading up the old elm-avenue at the finish. Tier f Worthies. 37 Sam Darling, who ceased to ride in Sam Darling's 1844, was another of the hard wasters, Wastes. and seemed to view it merely in the light of a con- stitutional. His walks in the sweaters alone, for fully twenty-five years, averaged some five hundred miles, as he often went, whether he had weight to get off or not. To the last he could manage eight two with hard pinching on a 4\b. saddle, to which he was peculiarly partial. He quite knocked up John Day junior, who was always a bit of a piper, in a strong twelve mile walk from Newmarket to the Swan at Bottisham and back. John's sweaters got slack, and he was so com- pletely beat that he gave in near the toll-bar. Coach- riding was Sam's aversion, as travelling in that style, especially by night, has an immense tendency to put on weight, although it " comes off like butter." He perhaps never galloped from Manchester to York in an afternoon, as Sim, Gray, and Garbutt once did ; but in 1832, one of the best seasons he ever had, he rode in 174 races, and won seventy-three, many of them heats, in all parts of the country. One year after riding in the St. Leger, he borrowed a clever hack from a brother jockey, and catching the coach at Shef- field, won twice at Shrewsbury the next day, and had time to waste as well. His delight was to get a great raking horse to make play with, and in the science of going in front to stop or force a pace, there was no more able practitioner. The habit of rather closing one eye Mr. Horsiey's gave him a very knowing look, and his Stor y of Sam - friend Horsley used to have a joke against him on this head. He had backed a horse with some stranger on the course for two sovereigns, and was asked for the money next day. " Dash me" said Sam, opening both his eyes as if he was quite astonished at the re- quest, "/ bet you two sovereigns /" " Ok! I beg your pardon, Sir" said the man, quite submissively, " The gentleman I bet it with had only one eye I've made 38 Scott and Sebright. some mistake" and he was moving off to renew the search when Sam called him back and paid. Such was poor Horsley's version of the story, but Sam always said that he made it. Isaac is the horse with which his name is linked, but Major Ormsby Gore's Hesperus, which he also trained, was the luckiest for him. The Gloucestershire Stakes, one of the earliest and most important handicaps, made part and parcel of this horse's thirty-four victories in his hands, and he was beaten in the only race in which Sam did not ride him. Four times over was Sam cheered as the winner of the Chester Cup, and perhaps no one ever rode so many different animals, all by the same horse, as he did when Lord Exeter and Mr. Houldsworth were making such a run upon Sultan. Winning the St. . Onl y one f the * Iiree g re . at races > to Leger on Rock- wit, the St. Leger with Rockingham, fell ingham. to h j s j^ and hg neyer took a mount w i t h less heart. He was engaged, as he considered, by Mr. Watt to ride Belshazzar, and was about to dress for him, when Dick Shepherd called him aside, and said, " / want thee ; thee must ride in the white cap to- day ; thee'd win." Sam's countenance fell, as he had just put a pony on Belshazzar, but there was no remedy. " TJieed win, I tell thee" resumed the re- lentless Dick in a louder key ; " coom and haic a glass of sherry for luck, and doarit look so sulky" Under these grim blandishments, he very reluctantly gave up the harlequin cap to Nicholson, and saddled the big pheasant-looking son of Humphrey Clinker, whose temper seemed none of the sweetest. The joints of the narrow-looking Belshazzar fairly "snocked" as he walked, and Tommy with his "spurs down-hill" as usual, made all the running with him ; but long before they reached the Red House, Sam found out that it was the white cap's day, and got two hundred from Mr. Watt for wearing it. There were only a few years between John and Turf Wort hies. 59 Sam Day, and clever as the brothers were, j ohn and Sam they got regularly picked up in the morn- D<^y's First ing of life, when they went off together to the diversions at Lyndhurst. John had a wonder- ful little brown pony, with which he expected to clear out the whole lot of Hampshire yokels, and he was so haunted with the fear of her being " got at," that he persuaded Sam, nothing loth for a game of that sort, to get into a crate in the stable, and watch her all the forenoon. Sam's position was one of undoubted peril. He was a tight fit to begin with, and the Saminthe truss of hay, which the cautious John had Crate - piled over him, gradually became so diminished, that at last he was within an ace of having the pitch-fork in his spine. Those who have known him, whether on Men- dicant at the Oaks post (where his mare was nearly kicked out of time) or in later years as banker at the Danebury Steward's Stand, will feel assured that he bore up under the dispensation ; but when he did re- join the outer world, it was only to face worse things. The brothers proceeded to the course, but it got buzzed about who they were, and how high they had tried their pony, and no one cared to be beaten. However, a country lad suddenly came forward in an apron and high-lows, and very humbly trusted that John would not take it amiss if " I run my old pony out of a cart there against you." " Who are you, Sir, may I askf said John, drawing himself up with native dignity ; "put down your ten pounds, and tJicn I'll see about it" The money came out so promptly that John rather began to smell a rat, but there was no retreating. John mounted, and the young man mounted with his butcher's apron twisted round his arm, and when the Danebury pony had been beaten some twenty yards, John learnt that he had been matching her against Gulliver, whose fame was in all the West Countrie. Sam had quite his share of winnings in the pony 4O Scott and Sebright. way, but he had the ill-luck to meet Macdonald on Mat o' the Mint at Sherborne, and to find that Mat's sister was pounds below his form. He also rode at Barnet for the Duke of St. Albans, and then he had six years with Cooper, who trained for the Duke of York at Newmarket, while "Our Jim" was riding exercise at Robson's. His brother John learnt his rudiments from his father, " an out and out fellow," as Grandfather Hampshire says to this day. Sitting in Da y- his low-crowned hat and brown leggings, on his pony Black Jack, and with Lord Palmerston at his side, watching Hougomont at work on Hough- ton Downs, he was as completely the model of the old John Bull trainer, as his son Sam was of the elegant muscular jockey, when Lord Rivers placed his statuette by the side of Tom Cribb's in his collection of man-models. John was first apprenticed at New- market with Smallman, who then trained the Prince Regent's horses. His salary was only ten guineas a-year, and two suits of livery ; but he steadily rose the ranks, and when he did get into riding practice, his hack's shoes had scarcely time to cool. With a saddle round his waist, and huge saddle-bags flapping at his side, he might be seen year after year on circuit, and two summers in succession, with Tom Dilly to cheer the way, he rode through the night from Exeter to Southampton, so as to catch a mount at both the meetings. John Day as a Perhaps he was greatest as a jockey in jockey. h{ s earlier days, when he had not so much training and betting on his mind. Latterly he pre- sumed very much on his own training, and liked to " feel my own condition under me." He was all ac- tivity, and very fond of a rush, and no one could handle a hard-pulling or bad-mouthed horse more ably. Touchstone, for instance, he held as if he was in a vice, and unlike Sam Chifney, who abhorred them, he gloried in curb-bridles. Still there was a Turf Worthies. 41 lack of ease and style about his seat, as well as his son Sam's, whose patience and hands were undeniable. Strange to say, old John never won a Derby, though he made up for it by five Oaks. Some of his plea- santest jockey recollections were his beating Priam and Conolly on Lord Berners's Chapman, and the re- cital of how he made play, and then stopped his horse for a few strides, and let the crack reach his girths, was given with a solemnity and emphasis befitting a passage out of the Old Fathers. Defeating Buckle for the Riddlesworth was another sunny memory, and so was The Column, which he snatched out His Race on of the fire on the Duke of Portland's Amphitrite. Amphitrite. " His Grace" he would say, "gave me his own orders ; ' John, you make play behind /' and I did. Jim Robinson went on Mirbury ; and then he suffered ; and I came thirty yards from the post, and I got first run, and he never quite reached me -that was a great victory for me'.' Coldrenick was a rare miler, but he did not deceive him at last, and there was nothing for it but to " bear up for him," and try and save some of the Derby money. John's severe system of training hardly suited a horse of that stamp, as he worked him instead of stopping him, and made matters rather worse than better. Still he wrought wonders in his time, and it would have made half-a-dozen trainers' reputations to have brought Crucifix with such a faulty sinew to the Oaks post, or get Grey Momus through The Port on such doubtful fore-legs. Never did any one lead a harder life His Waste in and out of the saddle. He went to Walk bed quite early, and was never asleep after four in summer, or letting any one else sleep. He took nearly an hour to dress, always tying his white cravat with the most scrupulous care. The horses were all done up again by eight, and then after a slender breakfast of tea and bread and butter, he went wasting for a couple of hours. The wind might be high, and the 42 Scott and Sebright. rain might pelt, but in that path of duty he defied the elements. A mile walk, which Alfred Day often used, was cut out for him round Sadler's Plantation, and when the March winds whistled keenly round young John's home at Longstock, he too deserted his daily trudge to Tidcomb Bridge or " the Lily Roarer" (Anglic^ White Lion) at Wherwell, and piped away towards the afternoon in the same sheltered grove. The umbrella, which never left Old John's grasp ex- cept for a whip, was not forgotten in his waste walk ; and he held it aloft on a wet morning, and sv/ung his arms by turn. He generally began at nine stone ten, but it came off very freely, and at his latest effort in and Danebury '45 he rode 8st. lib. on Wilderness for Discipline, the Ham Stakes in a 3lb. saddle. His stable lads were kept in the highest state of discipline, and after the two Sunday services, he never failed to assemble them in the dinner-room, and read one of Blair's Discourses. His whip hung up behind him, and with a rush as electric as that on Amphitrite, he had it down from its peg, and across the back of any of the unlucky sleepers. With his round hat, scarlet coat, and massive silver- handled whip (which John Day rigidly preserves as his staff of office) he made up admirably as a clerk of the course at the Stockbridge Meeting. When he had resigned that office and the stables to his son, he never missed coming over to the meetings to shake his old friends by the hand, and we remember how in 1854, he solemnly indorsed John's demand that " my boy William," who whipped in for the Four-Year- Old Triennial on the peacocky Pharos, ^which he had just purchased for twenty-seven guineas at Tattersall's should pass the post and " not disgrace the family by Sir John Mills being distanced." Those were times at Stockbridge when Sir John Mills with his four bays and the red-cuff postilions, was seen driving up to Danebury for lunch before the races Turf Worthies. 43 began, and then leading the way to the Stand. But the cavalcade did not go straight back to Mottisfont from the Stand, when Aitchbone and Alfred in the " all blue" had won the Champagne Stakes. The postilions nearly pulled down one of the Danebury gate-posts in their zeal to come in at a trot. The old baronet had another cigar and some more champagne, and gave the gout notice to look out for itself ; every bit of blue ribbon that the ladies or the lasses could rifle off cap, bonnet, or watch-case, was pressed into the service for streamers and rosettes ; and the church bells rung many a merry peal, as they did in after years for Giantess and the Warwickshire Handicap, when Mottisfont heard the news. Old John was in the thick of it, as delighted as any of them, at the success of the lord of the soil, but the meeting of '59 was the last both for him and Isaac Day. " No relation, but the best of friends," Isaac Da was always full of his kidding, and actively proposing during that visit to ride his black cob against a man on foot for a hundred yards. Good cobs were a great point with him, but he was happiest when he had a screw to doctor, and his very highest ambition was to be talked about. " The Vicar" had a remarkable time of it with his patron, before whom he used to stand most reverentially, hat in hand, as if he had been the Archbishop of Northleach. Still he could not make out what game Isaac would be up to next with him, when he once darkly observed on the authority of a late Duke of Grafton, that " no jockey was a jockey unless he could cross country," and that as he (The Vicar) was no longer a young man, it was high time that it should be seen by the world how he could perform in that line. The apparition of all John Osborne's lads, determined to eat out their en- trance shilling, was not one whit less startling to the office-bearers at a recent Middleham tea-fight, than the next announcement that Sparta was in training 44 Scott and Sebright. for the Liverpool, and that he was to ride her. How- ever, to Aintree the trio went, and Isaac had the laugh he yearned for, when he learnt from Tom Oliver, through the medium of an image of which Swift and Addison in their best form never dreamed, that the face of " The Vicar" in the scramble at Becher's Brook reminded him of a man " who had swallowed a wagon-load of monkeys." Uncle Sam in Like his friend Isaac, the celebrated the Epsom " Uncle Sam " was always a " light Paddock. ' ar t e d ' oss," and we may say, quite the Sam Weller of the Turf. We hardly ever saw that great steersman of Gustavus, Priam, Pyrrhus, and Mendicant look perfectly grave, except when he was lately leaning on his staff under the hawthorn canopy in the Epsom Paddock, drawing shrewd mental paral- lels between the past and the present, as twice the eighteen walked round him, and finally delivering judgment that one "was made at a pottery," and another "at six." No man had such a string of accidents, and plucked up under them so wonder- fully. He broke nearly every limb he had but the right arm, " skull and jaw included," riding for Dick Goodison, and then one leg was broken twice, once by jumping out of a carriage into a rut at Good- wood, when an omnibus backed into it, and ap^ain by slipping up in the Hall at Mr. Ben Way's. His spirits, however, knew no decay ; and music soothed his Uncle Sam on soul. He would have hold of a tin- the Pipe. pipe, when he was on his back after the first accident for nearly nine months, and played a variety of pastoral and martial airs with a taste and brilliancy which astonished the Singleton farmers. They never just knew where they had him on that pipe. At times, he would blow a hurricane, or go as low as a Southern Hound. " He could," as he was wont to observe, " kill a town wasting, and when he was in his golden prime, which, barring his leg, never Turf Worthies. 45 seems to leave him, he was not far wrong. For in- stance, when he was at supper at Robson's, a letter came from Lord Henry Fitzroy, that the Duke of Grafton's mare Loo was to run next day in an A. F. race, and that the money was on. Sam finished his helping, and then mounted the weighing-machine, which made him 8st. 4lbs. without his coat, but he went at it like a Briton, and, with physic and a four- teen-mile walk, got off the I2lbs., and won. The announcement of a lecture by His Lecture on him to the young jockeys and society Waste, in general on " My Wasting Days," would have filled Covent Garden thrice over. First he would have treated of liquors on this wise : " Drink inflates you, just like a balloon ; champagne and light wines are all rubbish ; they only bloiv a felloixfs roof off." He would then have tackled the eating part of the business in very different terms : "No man can work if he can't eat ; you cant get light without eating ; have a good mutton-chop, thafs my style ; it gives a tone to the stomach" We might then have had a pleasing digres- sion to the days when he was an eleven-six farmer near Reading, and took to the racing-saddle once more, accompanied by a variety of Robson anecdotes ; but most assuredly the curtain would have fallen to this great moral tag, " Depend upon it a man doesrit enjoy the comforts of life unless he knows the wasting part of the business" The history of his residence in London His London when he was at that business for the Practice, second time, would have been one of his finest " bits." He wanted to draw 8st. 7lbs., and he was two months doing it. Sometimes he showed his ruddy, streaming face among the quiet dwellers at Wimbledon, and departed like a flash, before they could make out his mission, leaving the very wildest surmises in his track. Again, he would be found walking in his woollen attire on Greenwich Hill during Easter, and not only 46 Scott and Seb right. getting scratched himself, but investing a penny on the spot, running after a large field of girls (who called him " The Mysterious Stranger,") and doing immense execution with his scratcher in return. At all events it was fine fun, and he was not only "fit to fight a windmill after it!' but to win the Derby and the Oaks as well. Early Tuition of J ohn and Bill Scott began well by John and Bill being born at Chippenham, near New- market, but they were not in the same stable, from the time they left their father, who be- came the landlord of The Ship at Oxford, till they met in 1814 at Croft's of Middleham. Mr. Scott, sen., who had ridden for Sir Sitwell Sitwell when he had Clinker and Gooseander (the dam of Sailor and Shoveller) in his stable, destined them both for the saddle, and placed John at Bourton under Stevens, and Will at Sadler's of Allworth. Boyce and Tiny Edwards gave them respectively " a New- market polish," and John had three-quarters of a year with Franks at Middleham, before he joined Croft, and looked after Sir William Maxwell's grey cup horse, Viscount. Starting for himself he had a few months at Hambleton, where he trained No Go, and when the great match was made between Filho da Fiiho da Puta's Puta and Sir Joshua, he was reauested Match. by Croft, whose health was very delicate, to undertake the responsible charge of the crack of the North on his Newmarket journey. The train- ing of this fine-tempered, leggy, and near-sighted colt was a very anxious task, and John had not much credit out of it after all. True to the great code of his life, he wanted to run him rather above himself; but when Croft came, he thought he had not done work enough. The Brothers Chifney, who had backed him, and were made Friends in Council, sided with the elder, so he was sent along again, and as John says with a sigh to this day, " That cooked Turf IV or t hies. 4 7 him" John's eye for condition is of a very Looking over the universal kind, and no one made a more ^queers' Let. accurate calculation of the time it would require to get them " fit," when the supposed " young Wackford Squeers" and a batch of pupils, rode down with him on the coach from London to Yorkshire. The fame of the match brought shoals of visitors to Filho da Puta's stable, and one of them walked in and made himself so much at home, that the young trainer was quite taken aback, and supposed that he must be a friend of the Maxwell family. However, when the horse was sheeted up again, it struck him that he had been a little too good-natured, The Sporting and he ventured to ask the stranger if Bagman, he would favour him with his name. " My name" he said, " with all pleasure Mr. Hogg from town, in the silk way," and with a most magnificent bow and strut he departed. The horse lost some lengths at starting by nearly going on to his head, and Goodis- son drove him after that ; but the match was the making of John Scott, and it ended in Mr. Houlds- worth's buying Filho for 3000 guineas, and taking the young trainer with him to Mansfield. It is worthy of note that on the great match afternoon, Sam Darling, who wore the Houldsworth colours so long and well in Beresford's day, made his Heath debut on one of Mr. West's horses. Bill Scott won the Doncaster and the Performances Richmond Cups on Filho, after running of Filho. clean out of the course in the latter race. As a sire Filho paid well for a time, and Sherwood, the second for the St. Leger, and Miller of Mansfield, were his principal legacies to the green and gold. His St. Leger was a very remarkable one, from the fact that at the close of the betting, the four first horses were exactly placed. The weight of money which Filho and Dinmont carried was enormous, as Croft had never been more confident, and hence Sir William 48 Scott and Sebrigkt. Maxwell might well thrust his stick for a safety-valve to his feelings, at night, through all the pier-glasses at the Rein Deer, and long in his rapture for more. The Dispute about name of his horse was rather a puzzler to his Name, the hardware youths, who had a vague notion that it was Fill the Pewter, and it led to a little difficulty between two of them, who had seen the race from a carriage- wheel. " Noo Jack, what wil't have for a croon?" said one ; and "Hang it, man, III have Filler" was the reply. " Witter?" said his mate. " Dang it, then, P II have Pewter;" and anon when the winner's name was shouted, there came such an angry skirmish of " Fse won ; Filler s won. Dang it, thoo's a tier ; Pewter's won, &c." succeeded by a battle royal, that the police had to interfere and explain. John's Riding. J hn had and a succession of the best stakes of the North and South for thirty years, until we recall him wending his way back to scale in his yellow and blue cap for the last time, on Snowball, at York. Still there is some j thing in Tommy Nicholson's facetious boast that he (Tommy) was best man over Doncaster ; as in Jack Spigot's year, he had a mount in fourteen out of the twenty-one races, and only lost once. Two years before that, Bill's and Tommy's claim to have ridden the St. Leger winner was in abeyance for sixteen days, and then the Jockey Club decided that the first start was valid, and that Tommy's Antonio win must stand. If Bill lost the St. Leger on Sherwood, it gave him an opinion of Barefoot which he turned to good account, when that Tramp chestnut ran for the Oat- lands and carried seven hundred of his money. He often declared, " It was the first good money I ever won. I knew from the Leger what a game beggar he. was'' Bill perhaps a little over-did it in that race by making such a strong pace with Sherwood, but his Doncaster recipe to the last was to make severe run- ning to the top of the hill. " If you cant get a pull and go on again" ho, was wont to say, "you'll never E 2 5 2 Scott and Sebright. win ; what's the use of condition if you don't use it f ' No one ever knew him lose a race if he once had the best of it, and if thirty were in it, he could tell with His Riding of one of his Parthian glances, exactly what Attiia. every one of them was doing. His brother always considers that his riding of Satirist in the St. Leger, and of Mundig in the Derby were the finest specimens of his style, which as far as daring and decision went, has perhaps never been matched. He was out of humour with Col. Anson for starting Attiia, with Qlbs. extra, and the St. Leger in view, and hence he cut the colt up sadly in the Drawing Room Stakes, when Robinson on Envoy had him as dead as a stone. In the St. Leger again he went off with him at score, and enabled Heseltine on Eboracum before they got to the Red House triumphantly to carry out his threat, "/'// run at Bill Scott as long as my horse can wag a leg." His Amuse- Bill was wonderfully fond of chaffing ments. Nat, an d dropped it into him rather heavily one day at "the Squire's;" but still his pleasantry was very neat, when he chose. " Well, my Lord" was his salute to Lord Maidstone, when the (i) was entered against the "gorge de pigeon" jacket, in Mr. Clark's book, after the Molecomb, and his lordship met him coming back to scale on The Caster, who had run half way up the hill. " Weve set the caster the first time'' In his hunters he was very choice, and the likeness between him and Ben Morgan, on horseback, has always been so striking that the East Riding men often say, that they seem to have him still amongst them, at Firby Wood side. For one grey horse, Ainderby, he was bid 450 guineas, and he rode the hollow-backed Heslington, of Northumber- land Plate fame, with Sir Tatton's, for two or three seasons after he had steeple-chased him, but he never made much out. In other respects he was not a keen sportsman. Turf Worthies. 53 He liked to have his greyhound, Major, at his heels, but did not care to run him much. Sometimes he fished in the Ouse, and if the fish did not rise properly, away would go rod and creel into the water; and when, after frightening a few rooks, he eventually knocked himself down with his gun, he gave it away to Isaac Blades. He was always in high spirits when he got to Harrogate, and in his latest visit to Harro- visit, the Tewit waters seemed quite to ate - set him up. Markwell was with him as aide-de-camp, and one day, at Bill's suggestion, the pair went to Brimham Rocks, not only in a donkey carriage, but in real state, with two more donkey boys as out- riders. William Gates and his father looked Training of his after his colt Sir Tatton Sykes for him, CoitSirTatton but he was very seldom "up" himself during his preparation. The colt took plenty of work, and Driffield had the schooling of him over a mile-and- a-half round Wise's Farm. They had only one spin together on Langton Wold, when his pupil gave him four stone easily. Old George Gates rode the young one in the trial, and despite his recollections of Lottery, he declared that he had never been on anything like him, and that he never half got him out. Still he was far riper for the St. Leger than he was on the Derby day ; and William Gates was so anxious, that he went to the course all dressed to ride him, in case his owner, who had wasted very severely, should feel unfit at the last moment. How such a sluggish horse got through his task was a wonder to every one ; as half-way up the distance Bill fairly dropped forward on to his neck, from exhaustion, and couldn't drive him at all. Many a rich story has fallen from the The Whitewaii lips of " The Wizard " in that little snug- Snuggery, gery on the left, when he goes back to the good old days, and dashes off in one pregnant sentence, the 54 Scott and Sebright. form of each stable favourite, till we can almost see Bill, and Frank, and Nat, in the saddle once more, and silently filing before us. What merry, and yet what anxious groups have mustered there, round the trio of spirit decanters, with their varied pace and colour emblems of horse and game cock white pile and grey, dun and chestnut, brown-red, and bay! Colonel Anson knew that council chamber well, and it was there that many a crafty Derby attack was planned ; and " all white," " red and blue," or " all black" was selected to silence the " Kentish fire," or turn the Danebury flank. Sim, Jack Holmes, and Nelson would all be on duty ; and if it was a great trial, Bill would start from his house at York after nightfall, to put the double on the touts, who stood, with a perseverance hardly natural to man, watching his every movement about Epsom-tide. No one wished for the dawn, when he had come with an ever-fresh stock of anecdotes and ethics, enough to set up half-a- dozen wits in trade. Pictures of the As the light flashes back on the walls, Cracks. we read^ from Herring's hand, the silent canvas record of those days. Hornsea of the wall eye, Don John, and Industry take up the Bretby tale; Mundig, the first " member for Streatlam" is there to catch the eye and jog the memory of many a speaker, and so is Cotherstone, whose merits, to the Colonel's utter astonishment, were enforced in Bill's most em- phatic speech, when the party had come back from Langton Wold on that morning which sealed Gaper's doom. There, too, among the family pictures of the little girl in the red cloak on the spotted donkey, are the late General Norcliffe, the owner of the Wold, and Sir Tatton and his trusty henchman, Tom Carter, as they appeared when the scarlets were hung on the nail, and the cubs at play, with no Proctor or Cruiser to rally them. Harry Hall and Ferneley also bear their part among the " Cracks of the Turf." Holmes Tiirf Worthies. 5 5 pulling Maroon double for the St. Leger, is the first painting on the left ; and if poor Jack ever mourned over his riding orders of that day, within earshot of Sim, he was pretty sure to be reminded that his reso- lution had not always been so rigid, and that neither his memory nor all the shouting at his girths could prevail upon him, at Richmond, to pull Delphine to one side, and let Sim win the stable money on Matilda. Touch- stone has his In Memoriam in the Doncaster Cup, in which Hornsea separated him and his old foe General Chasse once more. Attila, Canezou, " a good mare, but not a smasher," Fazzoletto, little Daniel, The West, and Songstress tell the story of their years : and there, too, in a pleasant tree and water group, are Frailty of Filho's blood, the dam of Cyprian, and Mrs. Bang-up, with Morgan Rattler by Velocipede at her foot. The elegant little Matilda, defying the The Whitewaii rush of Sam and the mighty stride of Dining-room. Mameluke, has her place in the dining-room, with Charles and Euclid fighting out their dead-heat. Velocipede holds the post of honour over the side- board, flanked by Cotherstone and Princess, the son and daughter of the great Ascot Cup rivals, and under their shadow, among Durham, Pontefract, and Malton Cups, the steel-armed shank bones of Tramp know no rest from man, when a round or silver-edge of beef is between them. The Petre chestnut days live again in Rowton and The Colonel ; and Cyprian, of the vicious eye and ear, bears testimony to that punishing finish, in which she taught the Houldsworth stable that it was not their destiny to win the Oaks. Frank and John himself are on guard over the fire-place, and there, too, is the Roland which carried the flying huntress, who introduced the first three-pommel saddle into Leicestershire, and made Captain White's sing out as she topped her first fence, "Look to yourself, Hey cock, or you'll be cut down by a woman T 5 1> Stott and Sebright. The Guests at What a multifarious miscellany of men Whitewaii. have sat at that bountiful board ! peers, baronets, barons, and Queen's counsel learned in the law ; foreigners, who have reverently journeyed to it and Sir Tatton's, within a week of landing, as if to a shrine ; squires, farmers, jockeys, trainers, and authors, " Pricking a Cockney ear," and jealously treasuring up each waif and stray for the time, when all Yorkshire is in its delicious Sep- tember simmer, and the talk in every harvest field, and at every ram-letting, is of what John Scott will run Baron Alder- for the Leger, and when he intends to son's Visit, try. Baron Alderson only wrote half his recollections of his visit. He might have told how he questioned Frank, on the whole art of riding ; how he wondered not so much at the condition of the horses, as where the supply of boys came from, and the solu- tion of the difficulty ; how he noted down, at Jim Perren's dictation, some of their most remarkable titles, " Spider," " Cudjoe," " Frog," " Weasel," " Squeaky," &c., and how, when the contents of Jacob's cock-bag were duly unfolded, nothing but the sternest Whitewaii head-shake checked Frank's itching fingers from having a regular carpet set-to. And so we draw near Cyprian's barn, Old Cyprian. . - . J * . 1 ' and turn aside to see that ancient bag of bones, with nigh eight-and-twenty summers on her head, and enough malice to make a short run, and a finish of every visitor in turn. Her death-warrant had been duly signed ; and when John Scott next took his way to visit Isaac Walker and " the infants" at Streatlam Castle, the barn knew her no more ; but a couple of thousand guinea and three five-hundred guinea foals, with Meteora to head them, are placed to her credit, with Weatherby. Then passing by I'Anson's paddock, where Queen Mary and her Turf Worthies. 5 7 daughter Blink Bonny raise their white faces at our approach, we are through the wicket gate on to the Wolds. Every one seems out that morning, scene on Lang- Cyprian's old friend Johnny Gray, who ton Wolds, could ride six stone seven when he was fifty, is there at seventy-odd, and blazing away upon Willie Wright. John Scott spies him forthwith, and doesn't forget to tell of Bill's frisk at Knutsford races, when he slept in the same room with Johnny and Ben Smith. Little Baker with the big straw hat, " the tall man from Newcastle," and eight or ten others, are on duty along the outposts, gathering " such information as no other gentleman possibly can have," from their tan gallop survey. Balnamoon is there, and they little think, as a despised brown ball of a filly bounds along by herself, that she is duly fated to lower the pride of the great Kettledrum. Cape Flyaway, as true a tryer as Dilkoosh or Backbiter, leads Sweetsauce, who, in his white quarter piece, and with Jack Charlton up, comes striding along as if the Goodwood Cup field were at his heels once more. The next are a lot of Barbatuses, and the Miss Whip colt fresh from a Knavesmire Stakes victory at York ; and The Wizard, with Bob Cliffe still true to him, in sunshine or in shade, comes up, nearly pulling double over his schoolmaster, the ever bold Benbow. Then the green furze at the distance is , .. & ... , , . The School- suddenly alive with sterns, and the word master at Home is passed : " There are Morgan and the hounds' coming over the Wold from Birdsall. Ben draws them up on a little knoll, and John Scott gets out of his phaeton, to give them greeting, and beckons Jim Perren to bring up the horses, and " let them walk near us in a ring." The Malton Messenger, big with prophecy, and on his white steed of fate, keeps, like ourselves, to the scarlets, while Jack Charlton with his grey's rein on his arm, 58 Scott and Scbright. and Ashmall on I'Anson's rare eleven-season hunter, Kettle, half-sister to Fisherman, join the morning consultation. " Dorit take off too much at once, Jim, from The Drone." " Now you may go home with S^iveetsauce, yoiive done enough for this morning ;" " Walk Longrange, and bring him steadily along a mile ; mind keep your hands down, Ginger /" " Jack, just get up again, and lead him /" float to us occa- sionally, as John, with his adjutant, scans each of the troop. Now, the council is over, and he turns once more to Arrival of tne hounds. He has, of course, his old "Ben" and the fling at Ben, for assuring him that his Hounds. coun t r y was " like the Grampians, and even The West couldn't live with them." Then Bill is in his mind once more, and he tells us of the run from Millington Wood, when " he rode a Whalebone horse, and I was only nine stone." Gameboy and Warlock lie blinking lazily, and half-dreaming, it may be, of the greatest day of the next season, from Garrowby to Warter ; or of the still more memorable Christmas Eve of '6 1, over three rivers and nineteen parishes. There, too, are Dexter and Dimity, of the John Scott's Grove Duster sort, " and not a bad sort Commentaries, either," as John Scott observes. Again, he picks out Woodman, " one of the Proctor nort in the picture for a thousand ;" and " Hang it, lies a slasher," is his terse commentary, as Rochester, with his stern up, walks proudly past him. Now Perren has a word, and asks about a Grove Rector, in a spirit of anxious inquiry, which makes his captain predict that " Jim will be a great kennel huntsman yet." Then the scarlets and the " spotted darlings" are lost among the distant furzes, and once more the White- wall thirty-nine, with Benbow still in command, file homeward through the Rifleman Dell, and the morn- ing's work is over. Robson delighted to see jockeys do their travel- Turf Worthies. 59 ling on horseback, and he was once known Pavis and to say to a very eminent one, " Now, 1 Conoiiy. saw you come in a cJiaise ; you don't ride for me all this week" Conolly and Pavis were great epicures in this way, and liked to go about with their gigs and ser- vants. On one occasion they passed Darling and Chappie riding into Abingdon, with their saddle-bags at their sides and their light saddles round their waists. When they again met on their arrival at The Lamb, Pavis told them that they were " a disgrace to go about with their pots" but quiet Jemmy only clapped his hand on his saddle-bags, and retorted, " /'// lay there s been more in these pots than there ever will be in all your fine gigs" Sam got his best rise out of Pavis, at Wells, whither the natty one had gone down for Mazeppa in the Mendip Stakes. Isaac Da >s De _ At the eleventh hour, Isaac Day deter- scent with mined to start Little Boy Blue, and Ut ^ oy brought Sam to ride him. Pavis had been elected king of the revels at the inn, and was bouncing most valiantly of what he was going to do next day, when the fatal forms of Sam and Isaac loomed in the door- way. Little Arthur nearly dropped under the table at the sight, and years after Isaac would go solemnly through the scene, with increasing humour at each performance. Chappie's T _ Jrjr Jemmy Chappie. great country successes were with Spectre, and his forte was waiting with a quiet horse, and taking a beautiful measure. Somehow or other, the country knew his value better than they did at head- quarters, and this he felt so keenly, that it somewhat hardened and crisped his manner. They were ready enough to offer him engagements after he won the Cesarewitch and Cambridgeshire, and it was no very cynical asperity in him to decline them. It was Nat's misfortune to have out- AW , M . ...... _ 11, i . A Word on Nat. lived his fame, and the baseless objec- tions which were taken to his mode of riding Toxophi- 60 Scott and Sebright. lite (who was " never half a good horse"), for the Derby, made it the fashion to call him " old Nat," and to say that he was nervous. For our own part, we believe that the public (who had always praised his riding most extravagantly up to that point) merely followed suit, and that his brother-jockeys are right in saying that he was as good as ever to the last. At no period of his career had he been quite a first-class man ; but still a most efficient rider, a respectful servant, and as honest as the day. He had been creeping well up for four or five seasons ; but the death of Pavis in 1839, at a ti me when he could ride 6st. lolbs. cleverly, and there were no "Tinies" or " Bantams," gave him an opening which he knew well how to use. He was the first Newmarket jockey that ever regularly got a footing at the Northern meetings; and Garbutt, whose practice had all but departed from him, did not much like this innovation. On one occasion, Jem made the running very good in a race at Newton, and turning round in his rough way, he contemptuously bellowed out to him as they returned to the scale, " There, Mr. Newmarket, what do you think of that to apace ?' Weight always favoured him, as he was barely I libs, heavier at fifty than he was at twenty-nine. His great knack was his quickness at a T.Y.C. post ; and, al- though he just kept within the line and avoided being fined, he often put the starter's temper sadly to the test by his determination if possible to anticipate the "Go along." We should call him rather a good jockey by profession, than a great horseman by intuition. He seldom did anything brilliant, but his good head and fine patience served him, and he rarely made a mistake as regards measure in the last few strides. A tremendous finish, when a horse had to be ridden home from below the distance, was not his forte; and it put him all abroad if he had to make running. His thighs were so short that he hadn't sufficient purchase Turf Worthies. 6 1 from the knee to use a sluggish horse, and if he had a free goer he was a little apt to overdo it. In his annus mirabilis 1848, he scored 104 victories ; but it was generally believed that he made most in Orlando's year, and entered about 5o much as to beat him in a finish. Job was best on a very free goer, as he could hold anything, and pre- ferred it to having to ride them all the way. There was less of the Chifney style about him than Frank, as he was never fond of lying too much away, and then trusting so implicitly to the creeping business, which once put Frank quite wrong on Nunnykirk at York. According to his own notions, the A.F. match on Colleen Bawn when he beat Frank on Leopard in the Newmarket Craven of 1847, anc ^ his Humdrum victory over the same jockey and Wolfdog for the Queen's Plate the same spring, after a most terrific finish from the Plantation, were about the best things Job ever did ; and the men were worthy of each other. His anxiety to pull off a great race for Mr. Bouverie and his uncle, after their Derby disappoint- ment, rather upset his nerve in the Chester Cup, and he always believed that he had won his race with War Eagle at the Castle Pole, and that if he had waited 62 Scott and Sebrigkt. longer under that crushing weight, he might have landed their money. It was somewhat singular that both Job and Frank should have been each specially known during their last season, in connexion with the horse they loved best of all. Job made his last great finish for the Doncaster Cup on Fandango, and Frank's sun set Frank Butler's gloriously in "The West." The first con- Surprise with nexion . of the latter couple was rather The West. an Q ^ Qne> F ran k h ac j been on him at Whitewall, but never expected that he was coming for the Criterion. His astonishment was unbounded when he first learnt the news from John Scott's lips at the Newmarket Station. " What /" said he, "you don't mean to say yoitve brought the big bay Jwrse with yon ; we've tried a rare good un, and I've backed him for a devil of a lot of money !" " I'm very sorry for it," replied John, " but we've had Sim and Jack up, and we like him, and Mr. Bowes has backed him for the Derby, the money's all on and you're to stand the odds to fifty." There was no help for it, and so Frank went and told his brother that Rogers would have to take the Sitting- bourne mount. He strictly obeyed his orders to " ride him tenderly up the hill, for fear he flounders in the dirt," but the horse could not move in it, and Speed the Plough dropped on to him at the finish. Colloquy with Frank's opinion of " the big bay horse" Isaac Walker underwent a great change after the Glas- e Moors. gow stakes, and he thought all the winter of what he and " my hack" were to do. He had liked what he had seen of the colt in the pre- vious summer, though he never expected him to be got fit that year. In the August of Daniel's year, when he was riding back with Isaac Walker from the Hunderthwaite Moors to Streatlam, he thus broke out, " Isaac, I've been thinking how wonderful it would be if we should win the Derby next year for Mr. Bowes. I've rot a rough customer for them ; I've won with a Turf Worthies. 63 little one this year, and I shouldn't be surprised if I pull through with a big un next." He came down to Durham for the grouse-shooting both years, but there was a great change in him in '53. No day was too long for him in Daniel's year, but the next August he could not follow his game. He wanted constant flask refreshers, and he was glad to sit down on the heather with the daily paper, and talk about what they had been doing at Egham. His fund of anecdote and chaff, which he delivered in a thick, husky voice, and with a visage as grave as a mustard-pot, seemed to have failed him, and there was no " Fine Old English Gentleman/' or " Return of the Admiral" at night Isaac still sadly remembers how they visited Tom Flint at Raby, and how out of that party of six he alone remains. Frank never exactly alluded to his TheOidVictorj growing weakness ; but it was in these Jacket, pleasant summer days that he promised Isaac to give him his Bowes jacket, whenever he died. " All the boys" as he used to say when he spoke of the bequest, " when they don't go for the stuff, they put on the flash jacket, but I always put on the old Victory!' Next month when he came out of the weighing-house after the St. Leger, and gravely asked Isaac if he had ridden him quite to orders, he slapped his hand on his jacket breast, and repeated the promise: " You' II never breed another West" he added, " I never knew what he was, I only touched him with the spur once in the Derby, and I was glad to get him stopped" It was to Hobby Horse that he could positively give 6st. in a rough gallop, and strangely enough, it was on that wretch that Frank weighed in for the last time on the Houghton Saturday of '53. Sore as the trial was, he kept at 8st. 7lbs. till this last afternoon, and won two matches, the second of them on Ariosto against his old opponent Nat. Acrobat had been his Derby delight ever since he 64 Scott and Sebright. Last Days of got off him after the Doncaster Two- Frank. Year-Old Stakes, with a prophecy in his mouth, and Dervish was his abhorrence ; but he never saw them put together with Boiardo, at three Two years old. He was at the Ditch Stables on the Thousand day, just about a stone over weight, and led Sim on Boiardo their canter ; and he took his saddle down to Goodwood that July in the hope of meeting The West once more, and getting upon him at exercise. His first master, Colonel Anson, lingered before going to India just to see The West win at Doncaster, and he had arranged to meet John Scott when it was over, near the Rubbing House, that they might say good-bye. Both had, however, a melan- choly consciousness that they should never see each other again, and when John did not trust himself to come, the other knew " the reason why," and with the kindest of farewell letters they parted. Jockey and master died almost together, the one in his tent at Poonah, on Ellington's Derby day ; and when we pass by that low St. Margaret's church wall, and glance over the "P. C. 1842" stone of little Conolly, and the grave of cheery Will Beresford beside him, towards the railings in the Nunnery corner, we may well think of the glorious time of Whitewall, and Frank in the " all white," and trust that, like his old master, he sleeps well. Mr. Theobald, Mr. Theobald, of Stockwell, was one of stockweii. O f the most remarkable of the Southern patriarchs. The old gentleman swore by Whalebone, Whisker, and Orville ; and Camel of the Whalebone and Selim blood, whom he bought from Lord Egre- mont, held the undisputed premiership of his stud. Camel This horse was as good as an 8oo/. annuityfor some seasons after Touchstone had brought him out, and Caravan, Wapiti, and Callisto carried on the game. When the Americans arrived and bid Mr. Theobald 5000 (niiness, he " Turf Worthies. 65 a verdict without turning round in the box." In fact, he did not even allow Lowry time to strip the brown before he refused the offer. The horse was then rising seventeen, and he lived for six seasons more. Nothing delighted the old man more than to stroll into the paddock, with General Wemyss and Bransby Cooper, to visit my " bit of Whalebone," and his fairy genius the white rabbit. Mr. Cooper used in- Mr Bransby variably to visit Stockwell on a Sunday, Cooper's opinion and Camel was always stripped as a relish before dinner. The great surgeon always maintained that he never looked over a more powerful piece of anatomy. His gaskins were enormous, and his leverage and mettle so great, that when Lowry lunged him, he could leap mid air almost to the last, to the full extent of a cavegon-rein. Mr. Theobald used to tell how Banter came there from Moor Park in the shape of a low lengthy mare of fifteen-two, but she was on a visit to Peter Lely when her first fruits appeared in the frail-looking foal Touchstone. Camel, Smolensko, and the little thir- other Sires at teen-hand racing pony Mat-o'-the-Mint Stockwell. were buried in that paddock along with Laurel, Cydnus, Norfolk Phenomenon, and the rest, but there were no tablets. " That would have touched the old gentleman up," and there was not even a tree to mark them. He had another bit of Whalebone in the grey Exquisite, the second to Frederick in the Derby, and the subject of Old Forth's bet about placing two ; but he served only a few hack mares, and that was also the line, though in a more eminent degree, of the short, thickset Caccia Piatti by Whisker. Cydnus, who beat Serab, was a chestnut by Quiz, and good for long distances in his day, and for half-breds in his decline ; and even old Fibbertigibbet, a blind chestnut by Comus from a Selim mare, was added to his col- lection from Jemmy Messer's of Welwyn. Tarrare by Catton was a great strapping sire for job horses, F 66 Scott and Sebright. after his mud tour with Tommy Nicholson at Don- caster ; but " the coarse and larky coach-horse" Laurel, who had under the same guidance avenged himself on both Matilda and Mameluke, and put Longwaist, Medora, Purity, and Mulatto to shame in the greatest of his eight cup victories, never made or had much chance of making himself a name at Stockwell, or anywhere else. The big, leggy Muley Moloch found a quiet refuge here, when he was compelled to abdicate in favour of Lanercost at Walm Gate Bar Without, and held it till the old gentleman died. Rockingham, Calmuck, Belgrade, and The Baron were also in resi- dence ; Sorella was rather a favourite purchase ; and Pocahontas came in the course of a city transaction from Mr. Greatrex. His Love of Mr. Theobald's highest ambition was being in the to have. the best of everything, cost what Fashion. it m j g ht Mat-o'-the-Mint was the re- sult of this feeling, and so was a dun trotting mare. He also owned Rochester, who did the five miles on the Bourne Bridge Road in 15 minutes 38 seconds, against the Squire's hunting-looking Rattler; and Macdonald never handled anything much better than his Rockingham, who with his shaggy mane and low- set tail, reminded bystanders more of a lion than a horse. In short, the Squire of Stockwell carried out the fashion of the day in everything, and pushed it to the very extreme. Cost what it might, he would be in the front. Sometimes his harness was smothered in brass, and then plated would come up once more, and he had the best of that. All his bacon was cured on the premises, and he defied Yorkshire or Cum- berland to beat it. He brewed ale, which he was ready to match for a hundred a-side against the Sled- mere or Trinity College audit ; and yet amid all this rivalry with the great, " he ne'er forgot the small," and kept four or five cows specially for the poor's oiilk. Tiirf Worthies. 67 At one time he dressed like the Prince His Dress and Regent, and he finally subsided into D s s - buckskins, brown-tops, blue-coat, with gilt-buttons, buff-waistcoat, white handkerchief, and a broad- brimmed hat. His weight was about twenty stone. He breakfasted regularly at half-past ten in his little parlour, whose walls James Ward, R.A., and Herring had covered with their racers and trotters. The blood- hound lay blinking on the rug, and quietly waiting for his share of ih i plate with those mysterious eleven slices of thick bread and butter, which the housekeeper placed each morning at her master's side. Before starting for town, the old man made it a rule of life to walk to the wicket-gate where five cats and as many more dogs were duly in waiting, but they learnt to know by the church bells that they had to look out for Sunday's breakfast elsewhere. A yellow " pill- box" always took him to his place of business in Skinner-street, and a roan, brown, or Tra Horses chestnut, each of them worth about 200 guineas at the very least, was between the shafts. The pace was always first-class, and his man returned for him in the afternoon with a fresh horse. After dinner, if he was alone, John Lowry appeared, and read The Advertiser, beginning of course, with the racing and " Vates." On Saturday night Trips to Don . his master would sometimes produce a caster and roll of bank-notes, and be off betimes in Ne wmarket. the yellow chariot, with John on the box, to New- market for the week. Such was his love of pace, that he would not condescend to divide the Doncaster journey into three days, as others did, but he dozed all the way and slept at the Bull at Witham Common the first night, and arrived on the second at his lodgings near the Betting Rooms, which he shared with his friends Tattersall and Peter Cloves. He was hearty and bulky, and had the keenest enjoyment of a race to the last, and it was not any disease of old age, F 2 68 Scott and Sebright. but a mere casual ailment which laid him, at eighty- five, low in Kensal Green, nearly three years be- fore Stockwell secured him his A I register among breeders. The Late Mr. For three years before his death, Mr. Tattersaii. Richard or rather "Dick" Tattersall, never mounted the rostrum, and even then his memory had begun slightly to fail, and his son never left his side. It was only on this point that he showed signs of decay, as his general health continued good, and he died very suddenly (1858), at Dover, in his seventy-fourth year, merely from exhaustion brought on by the heat ; and was buried on the Goodwood Cup day. He was a man who from his simple honesty and unusually straightforward, decisive manner it was impossible to misunderstand, and it has been well said of him, that " the best men liked him best." To rogues and dodgers he was a perfect terror, as he spoke his mind to every one, peer or groom alike, whom he didn't consider to be going straight, and always conveyed his sentiments in pretty unmistak- able terms. If the servant or any other agent of the owner bid when the sale was " without reserve," he has been known to send the whole stud away, after the first horse, declaring in tones like the view holloa of " The Squire," " piercing the heavens, Boys," that he "would tell a lie for no man alive" To professional betting he had a most inveterate dislike, and beyond perhaps taking the odds to a fiver for the Derby or St. Leger, often only on the morning of the race, and very seldom winning, except in Phos- Disiiketo phorus' year (when he took 100 to I, Betting. ou t o f respect to Lord Berners), he hardly risked a crown. In fact, when young men wrote up to him about becoming members of the Rooms, he as often as not wrote a line in reply to say that betting was certain to ruin them, and they had, therefore, far better keep their two guineas in their Turf Worthies. 69 pockets. His feelings, both on this and many other points, kept very large sums out of his ledger ; but it was the confidence of the public, not money, that he cared for. Still The Rooms were an institution which hardly admitted of being conducted in any other than a pure matter of fact way ; and as inconvenience arose out of his scruples, he felt it best to hand over the management of them entirely to a committee. His opinion, like Bill Scott's, was made up by his first glance at a man or horse, and his laconic analysis of a lot, which seldom failed to put his audience in a roar, and the way in which he dropped on to any dodging bidders, or pert would-be questionists, were always grand in the extreme. His father, Mr. Edmund Tattersall, His Entry on died suddenly from brain fever, and he the Business. thus assumed the sole command at The Corner, when he was only twenty-five. For some years he did all the business himself, and was then joined by his brother Edmund, and under their joint auspices, and that of his son and nephew, the firm has well held its own. A stag-hound difference between " Dick " and Colonel Maberley led to the establishment of the Baker-street Bazaar, but as Horace Walpole said of a certain Court beauty, the old spot " required a vast of ruining." His grandfather " Old Tat," who first established the concern, died in 1792, and was buried near Highflyer Hall. That "family horse" The Yard at was not foaled, and Bay Malton had Tattersaii's. just made the pace strong enough in a four-mile race over York to burst a blood-vessel in King Herod's head, when the 99 years' lease of the place was first signed with Lord Grosvenor. Old Tat showed his loyalty by surmounting the pump cupola with a bust of the Prince Regent, modelled when he was only seventeen. It was lost during the repairs, and missing for several years, after being 70 Scott and Sebright. searched for high and low, and was then found by the merest chance among some waste stones in a builder's yard and duly replaced. When the lease was signed, in 1766, "The Five Fields " stood on the site of Belgrave Square, and cows and footpads shared them. There was in fact nothing but fields, where partridges still dared to "jug," as late as 1812, between Hyde Park Corner and Chelsea, and back fare had to be paid to the ancient jarveys if they took a fare off the stones up to the present Prince's Gate. Mr. Richard Tattersall's house was for many years the London head-quarters of the Jockey Club, who had a regular cook and coffee-room ; and all the Newmarket business was transacted at the office of the late Mr. Weatherby, who was in practice there as a solicitor. Mr. Tattersaii's Mr. Tattersall's father and the Prince Connexion with Regent had been partners in the Morn- the Prmce. ^^ p os ^ anc j cas j n cjooo/. damages for "a delicate Court disclosure." Although the paper passed into other hands, the royal connexion with the son remained firm, and only once was there an interruption of good feeling on George Guelph's part, and then only for a few hours. Count Miinster was Difficulties with tne Hanoverian Ambassador to the H.R.H. about Court of St. James, and shared with a Challenge. Hig Ma j es ty the guardianship of a cer- tain reigning Duke. The latter felt himself aggrieved at some money matters, and his equerry requested Mr. Tattersall to convey a letter to the Count. Not suspecting anything, he took Wimbledon in his after- noon's ride, and as the Count was not at home, he gave the letter to the valet. His astonishment and indignation were most unmeasured, when The Times of the next day announced that a challenge had been sent to the Count, and that Mr. Tattersall had been the bearer of it. It was, of course, construed by the King into an insult to himself, as co-guardian; but Turf Worthies. 7 1 an explanation soon set matters right between them, and it transpired that, if the letter had not met with such convoy, it would have been left by an attorney's clerk. When George Guelph became King, H is Majesty's he honourably paid off every outstand- Care for old ing liability, and sending for Mr. Tatter- sail, he said to him, " You've known all the men I've known in my youth ; when any of them ever get into difficulties, send me word." And so he did most faithfully, and a royal cheque for all amounts from ioo/. to SOQ/. would arrive, whenever the out-of-elbows office was given. Mr. Tattersall's lameness began when Mr. Tattersaii as he was quite a boy, and was always attri- a Hunting Man. buted to the groom's habit of giving him a leg up very roughly on to his pony. He had been limping for some months before his family took much notice of it, and even Dr. Hunter pledged his word that the bone was not out of the socket. Time said differently, but not until all cure was hopeless. Still this sad mis- fortune did not dwell on his mind or stand in the way of his hunting, a sport which he loved far beyond racing ; and after Lord Derby's grandfather gave up the Surrey staghounds, and Mr. Maberley tired, he managed them for three or four seasons. He was one of the most regular staggers when his lordship lived at The Oaks. Jonathan Griffin, on his grey, came out in state, with his whips and prickers on their 2OO-guinea horses, and Lord Fitzwilliam, Sir Hed worth Williamson, the Hon. Fitzroy Stanhope, the Hon. George and John Coventry, Lord Lecon- field and his brother General Wyndham, and the Hon. Berkeley Craven were seldom missing from among the scarlets, when Smitham Bottom was the meet. Mr. Tattersaii was also a constant frequenter of the cover-side ; and in order to meet Earl Fitzwilliam's, he would sometimes have three hacks posted for him, and 72 Scott and Sebright. starting as soon as his Monday's sale labours were over, ride all the way to Stamford, where he arrived in the dead of night. In consequence of his infirmity, he liked to have the horse on his arms, and hence any one who had a very hard-puller or rusher, at about five-and-thirty pounds, knew pretty generally where there was a customer for it. He had no purchase with one knee, and simply rode by balance, steadying him- self at a leap by a handle at the back of his saddle. If he could succeed in having three or four falls in a day, he was all the better pleased with himself; and said that he never had a good run without them. He quite enjoyed hearing those who did not know him, exclaim as he limped across the field after his horse " Poor fellow ! look how he's hurt himself" Understanding The da 7 s wh en the white horse of a with Highway- leading road practitioner was styled " Auld Robin Gray" were not over, when he took his lonely night rides into the Midlands : but the highwaymen all knew him, and he rode unscathed among masks and pistols. The pikeman near Gran- tham once said to him, when he was on his way to meet " The Duke's," " Don't go on, sir ; I've had several through to-night, and they've all been robbed" " Never mind, my man" said the little hero, " no one ever stops me" and on he went. Two miles further, and a masked horseman was at his side, and they rode silently for some two hundred yards together. At last there came the husky voice of the night, "7 think your name's Tattersall" " Tattersall ! of course it is" was the reply, " Richard Tattersall all the world over" This was quite enough, and with the courteous rejoinder, "Ah, I thought so; I beg your pardon, sir" and a mutual " good night," they parted. Sir Clement ^ e was seldom heard to tell this story Dormer in without dwelling in contrast upon the Difficulties. woes of Sir clement Dormer, who was T^lrf Worthies. 73 Master of the Ceremonies at St. James's. Sir Clement was fond of riding up to London on a very large horse, and talked on horse matters to every one he saw. Coming out of Beaconsfield one day he over- took another horseman. " Going to town, sir ?" he began. " Yes, Sir Clement, I am',' was the reply. " What ! you know me, then ? well ride together'' And on they went. " That's a very nice horse you re on" said Sir Clement. " Yes, he is," said the man. " Would you like to see him go f They were under Bulstrode Park wall at the time, and the man trotted away to a turn of the road, where he could see half a mile before him. The coast was clear both ways, and when Sir Clement arrived full of admiration, his new friend promptly put a pistol to his head. There was nothing for it but to produce his purse, and receive the sorry consolation in exchange, " Now, Sir Clement, do let me advise you to give tip that bad habit of talking to every one about their horse" Mr. Tattersall bore a charmed pocket in town, and once when it was picked of a handkerchief, remorse seized the appropriator, when he was proceeding to pick out the name, and it was " returned with compli- ments taken quite by mistake." One cracksman was, however, much less scrupulous, as he broke into the office and took 5oo/. Suspicion His stories of rather fell upon the too celebrated Slender Billy. " Slender Billy," who was then a great man with the Corinthians, and had cocks, badgers, rats, bears, and terriers, ready to go into action at any moment. His crib in the Willow Walk, Tothill Fields, was a perfect conjuror's bottle in this respect, and if there was likely to be " a call of the house," on any very important occasion, he could knock up a bull-ring as well. The Bow Street runners were all terrified at him, and haunted with a legend, that when their august body had once girded up their loins for a descent upon him, Billy had vindicated the majesty of the spot in his 74 Scott and Sebrigkt. peculiar way, by unloosing the bears. They knew him ostensibly as a knacker, but it was whispered that he " was wanted" for a little affair about the com- munion plate at St. Paul's. A still heavier suspicion Boiling the Ex- hung over him, and " Oh ! master, to ciseman. think that I should go and boil an excise- man /" was his invariable mode of parrying the ques- tion which was so often propounded to him on that head. He seemed to look upon any allusion to it as rather a delicate compliment than otherwise, and there was an impression on the mind of the executive, that the unhappy gauger, who could never be traced beyond, had visited Billy's premises once too often, and had been popped bodily into the flesh copper. Billy's Warning Under all these rumours, Billy pre- Voice, served a pleasing and courteous exterior, and in such perilous times it was prudent for virtue and respectability to stand in with him, just so far as to have his good word if they were robbed. One evening, a leading man was sitting down to dinner, when the presence of " The slender one" in the ser- vants' hall was announced. " Do ask Billy what he wants with me at this time of night!' was the testy message ; but Billy refused to unbosom by proxy. There was nothing for it, and as it was not safe to alienate Billy's affections by neglect, the parlies met at once, and conversed on this wise : " Well, Billy, what's up now f" " You've lost one of your fat pigs, master? " Yes, I have, Billy, and Fll make the fellows pay for it pretty sharply? " Now, look here, master, Pll just tell you what it is ; if you go on as you're doing, kicking up siich a confounded row, YOU'LL LOSE THE OTHER." " Well, Billy, it's a bad job ; but per- haps I'll take your advice, and say no more about it." And so Billy departed, and the bereft one became bacon in peace. and his Exe- Billy came to grief and the gallows at cution. i as ^ under the operation of the Forgery Turf Worthies. 75 Act. It was proved that he could neither read nor write, but that mattered very little. When Bow Street, stimulated to unusual energy by the taunts of its superior, dropped upon him, he had the flash-notes in his hand, and not only thrust them into the fire, but held them there. Having only his "left duke" at liberty, he could not defend his hearth position long enough, and sufficient fragments were rescued to give the assayer his cue. Mr. Tattersall visited him in the condemned cell, and urged him to confess his asso- ciates, and for a few minutes he sat on his box, with his heavily chained hands to his face, apparently ab- sorbed in thought. Then he broke out : " No, master, they'll never say that Slender Billy split on his pals ; if every hair on my head was alive, and had to be hung separate, I wouldn't? And die he did, walking second in the procession of nine on to the Newgate Scaffold, and some would have it that Dan Dawson, who wore the fatal nightcap on Cambridge gaol next spring, when he had cost the Jockey Club I5' s - the stock of Cervantes made two-year-old running. Delpini filled it with rather leggy greys, most of which could go four miles. He was the sire of Mr. Gar- forth's Vesta, who, with her dam, Faith, and her half- sister Marcia, formed the most beautiful trio of greys that ever adorned a stud, Mr. Pierse's not excepted. There were three Delpini greys amongst the eight St. Leger starters in Beningbrough's year ; and his grey Symmetry soon afterwards proved his claim to be the sweetest-looking colt that ever won that Delpini of the race. Delpini himself was very closely Woolly Coat, allied to the Arab in his look, light-bodied, and with a prominent eye and head, which told of desert descent ; and even when he was wasted almost to a skeleton, he miraculously retained his beauty. During his last three years, he never shed his coat, and be- came like the woolly child of caravan lore. The fact was so well known in Yorkshire, that when an old gentleman with very long white hair sat on the Grand Jury for the first time at York, and went up to the foreman to pay his footings, there was heard this pretty audible aside from one of them, " Here comes the Del- pini colt" Golumpus was the first sire Sir Tat- Turf Doings at ton ever used, when he began to keep a siedmere. few mares at Westow, and Siedmere, by Delpini from a Gabriel mare, who went to Sir Bellingham Graham for 800 guineas, was the first good sale he made. Half of this horse belonged to Sir Mark, who had four or five brood mares at Siedmere in 1804, and among them the sisters Miss Teazle Hornpipe and Miss Hornpipe Teazle by Sir Peter from a Trumpator mare. Both of them were sent to Sancho, and they returned in foal with Prime Minister and President The former beat Tramp, after a most desperate finish in the Four-year-old Subscription at York, and the K 2 132 Scott and Sebrigkt. latter was a little brown horse, which passed into Sir Tatton's hands, and was given by him to an earth- stopper. To the donor he proved rich treasure-trove, as he soon ranked next to Screveton in the North Riding's eyes, and nearly all the young things were fathered on the pair. The Sledmere horses were then trained at Marramat, by George Searle, and while Mr. Bethell, of Rise (who was confederate with Mr. Pratt) confined his racing nomenclature to Green- gage and other fruits, Sir Mark bethought himself of the Knights-of-the-Round-Table, and went in for Sir Sacripant, Sir Bertram, Sir Marinel, and the like. Sam Chifney in Sam Chifney, who had attracted his Yorkshire. notice at York, was engaged as jockey at IOO/. a-year, but his dawdling ways were against him, and he was spoken of, in the Sledmere stable, as " the long, thin, lazy lad." As he lived at Newmarket, a hack had to be sent over frequently by appointment to meet the coach at Malton, and as often as not it returned without him. When Woldsman was to be tried for his Shuttlecock match, over Knavesmire, Sam kept Sir Mark and his brother waiting three or four hours, and then arrived a stone over weight, from a venison feast. After his discharge on the trial morning, Garbutt, who was, like Snarry, a lad with Searle, rode occa- sionally for the stable ; but Jackson got the best mounts, and never showed finer horsemanship than when he met Petronius with Theresa, at York. Camiiius and Sir Mark gave 500 guineas for Camil- stumps. l us by Hambletonian from Faith, and kept him for eight or nine seasons, till he died. He was barely fifteen-one, and full of Arab quality, and his portrait, with the old coachman at his head, forms one of the Penates at Sledmere. One of his fillies was the dam of Negotiator by Prime Minister, a strong, useful horse, but rather a rambling goer, and sold to Lord Kennedy for 700 guineas, at three. Tier f Cracks. 133 Stumps by Whalebone was the first sire Sir Tatton ever bought, and he combined his favourite fifteen- two standard, with rather light bone, and an aptitude for heats, in which he had beaten Goshawk. He had Delpini's style of head, and it was from his light fore- legs, and his stumped-up way of going on them, that ne acquired his name. Two hundred guineas was his Doncaster price, and he was finally given away after five seasons to a tenant in Holderness. His end was a Death of sad one, as he broke away from his stumps, leader, who was in his cups, and caught a fatal in- flammation from wandering up and down a field in a rainy night, with his sheets dragging at his heels. But Snarry in his snow-white jacket An Afternoon must step forward now, ashen plant in with Sir Tatton Hand, like the Chorus in the play, and anc tell his experience of Sledmere past and present. The inspiriting presence of Dick Stockdale, more deep than ever in the Maroon faith since he became his own, was not wanting that day. Both openly and by implication he set forth his praises. We heard of high stepping bays by him, which had worked their way into the Royal Mews, and again that mysterious story of a presumptuous rival, who only lived to break two men, and well nigh caused another to hang himself. And so, passing for the present, over Daniel the delight of Snarry's D fc Re . heart, Colsterdale with whom he has lation of Snarry never held more than an armed truce, ^^l^ 1 " and Fandango towards whom he has al- ways preserved a highly dignified neutrality, we com- menced our journey with The Dialls field. It was high-tide with The Lawyer that summer and Snarry's Manchester Examiner was perpetually bringing good tidings. As luck would have it, his dam stood fore- most among the eleven mares ; and our interpreter spake on this wise. 134 Scott and Sebrigkt. The Diaii's " That's Lawyer's dam ; she's by Hamp- Fieid. f-Qj^ dam by Cervantes, great grandam by Smasher. Lawyer'd have been a lost horse if he'd not been sold at York ; he's just got hold of four Queen's Plates in four days. They rode her at Birdsall when the hounds went there, hunter and hack occasionally. That's a half-brother to him by Caster, that chestnut Sir Tatton's on now ; Mr. Sykes has another of them in London. The old brown horse, he was shot last week, not very safe at last, he'd carried Sir Tatton sixteen years. I thought I was right on that point, however ; I don't think he ever had a name. Hampton ? yes, we must go back a bit ; he'd be by Sultan out of Sister to Moses ; we had him first in '38 ; his mares are going off now , Lord Westminster had him ; gave 600 guineas for him at the Hampton sale ; he was a chestnut ; he got us short-legged, strong chestnut mares ; Sir Tatton gave three hundred for him ; he was a slow beast, did us a deal of good for all that. Cervantes ! you want to know about him ? he was a compact-looking horse ; not so very big ; they were pretty fair stayers. That's a Fernhill mare, we had him a season. That's sister to Odd Trick by Sleight, she's got the best foal here, that's by Daniel That's Thornhill's dam ; hers'll be by Colsterdale ; like him too ; second best foal, but a long way behind. We've thirty or forty Colsterdales. That's Greyling's dam there, and sister to Jack Frost, both by Sleight. They've each got one, so has the Jereed mare. That's a Knight of the Whistle ; she's one of the best bred ones in England, I'll be bound for it ; her foal's by Daniel, and a very good one it is. We had a good way on to a hundred foals, five double ones, seven or eight mares slipped, and some not put to. That mare's by Hampton, dam by Young Phan- tom out of sister to Barefoot, she's the prettiest mare we have. " This is Swale's Wold; that will be an ash belt, oaks Turf Cracks. 135 don't manage much of a tap-root in Swale - sWold these parts. We've four Fernhill mares here ; that's one of them, the chestnut ; let me see, she's by Pyrrhus from Odd Trick's dam ; a Daniel foal too, such a thick one. Pyrrhus was only here one season, and left us large chestnut mares. That's a Burgundy : we'll not say much about her looks, rare bred un for all that, out of a Muley Moloch mare, the foal's a Colsterdale ; got his hind-legs to a shaving. Do you mean that white-faced one on the heap ? Algebra, best of Mathematician's get. Poor Mr. Drinkald, he would send him : she's got a chestnut filly by Daniel, bloody-looking the white-faced one, I mean. They're ten foals here, all of them fillies. That's a Caster mare, Colsterdale again, and very like him. We had Caster seven or eight seasons, I think you'd put thirty to him one season, Sir Tatton ; aye ! it would be fully that ; he was a thick, short horse, got us little stumpy mares, we've very few of them. That mare's off sister to Spotted Boy's dam ; * * * Yes, it's a good cow, I question whether we've a better about the place. "They call this The Cottage Pasture. The Cottage There are the mares among those white Pasture, thorns in the slack : sister to Sauter le Coup, she's a beautiful mare by Sleight of Hand out of Black Tommy's dam ; we bred him, he was second for the Derby. That Orlando-looking colt's out of her own sister, and her first foal ; you needn't ask if it's a Daniel, when we see the legs and limbs. Yon brown mare, she's by Sleight out of Darling ; a grand mare ; we've best mares of anybody's, I don't care where they are, we can challenge any stud in England with our Sleight of Hand mares ; bring what they like, we'll meet them. That's a Stumps mare, as like the family as aught we have ; he had sweet legs and hind-quarters, his fore ones wern't much to crack of ; 1 36 Scott and Sebright. she's got a grey, short-looking Daniel ; it may make something yet ; from grey mares Daniel gets as many grey as anything ; we've put her to Fandango, he's rather starved Daniel ; that Stumps mare Wicket we had, she scratched her hip with a nail in the railway- box, and died of lock-jaw. This will be as good as ever she was. That's a Pyrrhus mare, dam by Sleight of Hand, she's sister to Baronet. Colsterdale, he got them half chestnuts the first go off ; after that more bay ones. Cherry Wood " We're coming into Cherry Wood End. ]? nc i ; there are five mares, all of them with fillies ; three whites among them. That's Pan- mure's dam by Stumps ; we had Stumps six or seven years ; he'd be fifteen-two, Sir Tatton, and not very good measure either ; we've a granddaughter of Wicket, she's had nothing that's come to hand yet ; Monge's dam by Bay Middleton, she's another of the whites ; and that mare by Sleight of Hand dam by Cervantes, grandam by Young Phantom, we call her blue grey. That great, stout-bodied mare, she's sister to Grey Tommy by Sleight of Hand ; Mr. Drinkald bought five or six that turn. The brown mare next her (the Colsterdale's a twin), she's by Sleight of Hand, dam by Comus, grandam by Go- lumpus. We've most stout mares by Sleight, he got us nice bays and browns; St. Giles is from them. Sleight of Hand, he was as narrow as a rail across the hips ; he hit with the Hampton's, they're low and wide, with wonderful fore legs, and the Comus mares. Mr. Scott said he was good, but a bit delicate bloody head and neck. Sir Tatton and Mr. Osborne were a long time over the bargain, it went on nearly all the Doncaster week 325 guineas at last ; he was a cheap horse to us. We had two Comus mares last year, one's put down and one's dead ; he got foals, did the old horse, when he was twenty-eight ; he got us chestnuts with white legs ; he had no white himself ; Turf Cracks. 137 Sir Tatton hired him for six seasons. Grey Momus, he was the pick of the basket, he was from a Cervantes mare. Many Comus mares are grey, they get it from Camillus, he got them grey ; Cervantes's and Young Phantom's, they come bays. Young Phantom never got us a chestnut ; he was half Bill Scott's ; lame at three years old, though ; he got his foot into a rabbit hole ; Comus never had a spavined one, and only one ring-bone that I know of. "You'll know Craggs Flat again, we TheCraggs put the cracks here ; all colts looking Flat - like yearlings and all chestnuts but one ; five Colster- dales and two Daniels. They're very forward pas- tures ; there are two black lambs to make stockings of. That chestnut mare's by Sleight out of sister to Hamptonia ; she only lived to have a colt and a filly ; that's the filly. The pretty dark chestnut by itself, that's Thornhill's dam; that's the first Colsterdale foal we had ; there's Naughty Boy's dam close by her ; that's a rare thick chestnut Colsterdale she's got with her, it's a horse now ; Amati's dam never made a mistake ; Mr. Cookson came here and found the name on a fiddle, that's why we called him that. We must get it correct anyhow ; only four of them have ever had a bridle on. Gorse. Hill, Amati, Elcho, Bogle Hill Marquis of Bowmont they called him when he won all winners ; bred nothing but what's won, what's been tried however. The chestnut's by Sleight of Hand out of Darling ; she has a chestnut ; t'other's a bay Colsterdale foal, and like him too ; that Darling blood's as good as anything we have. Little Hampton was from the old mare. That's a Pyrrhus mare, none of them's run but Bayonet ; I doubt he's not so good as he ought to be ; they keep matching of him ; I don't know what they're doing with him ; they don't measure him well, I think. Yes ! he gave 22lbs., Sir Tatton. " There are lots of mushrooms in this Castle field 138 Scott and Sebright. The Catie we get the best view of Sledmere from Field - it ; that's Marramat among the firs and ashes over there. Sir Christopher planted the woods ; there's a good gallop two miles round among those woods at Marramat ; Sam Chifney's ridden in it many a time. George Serle had the farm, and trained Sir Mark's horses ; I was there as a lad, fifty years ago ; aye ! it will be fully that ; then Sir Mark's horses went to Joe Ackroyd's, where Mr. Scott lives now ; then on to Perren's at Settrington. Tibthorpe Wold Farm lies over there ; a good bit of Boddle was a rabbit warren ; those red roofs there, that's it ; then we get round Marramat Mowthorpe Kirby and the rest of them. The separate trees look like a wood. We're forgetting these mares ; there are five Sleights amongst them ; have you got that one down ? I sup- pose you'll be bringing out something in the Silk and Scarlet style ; one of them's by Sleight out of Wicket, white mare you were talking of ; next her, let me see, she'll be by Sleight of Hand, dam by Stumps, grandam by Oiseau. The white-legged bay walking off ; that's Wynnstay's dam, with a foal just the make of Colster- dale. Mr. Sykes rode the little chestnut mare with the harriers ; that's her Daniel foal, that thick un. Daniel's fillies have a deal more grey at the root of their tails than the colts ; there are a deal of grey hairs from Daniel ; that's the Irishman ; the tails always witness of Daniel, they used to be called the Matchem arms. That big foal in the middle, he's brother to Highflyer, and not fly so very fast either. We only once brought up twins, they were a couple of Riflemen. The King's " There are only two Pyrrhuses in this Field. King's Field, and a sister to Wollaton ; the skewballed one's out of sister to Baronet ; I didn't know what was coming, so Sir Tatton says. Well ! there was a great white patch on the side, as like a calf as aught. That other Pyrrhus, Sir Tatton thinks Turf Cracks. 139 her about his best. Now, there is a good halter full, Mr. Stockdale ! We had seven or eight Pyrrhuses, Sir Tatton's never sold but two, and those to the King of Italy ; Mr. Phillips came, and Count Cigar or Cigala, I think they call him well, it's some name like that. "We must cross the Driffield Road, Across the Road and through the wood ; that will bring and into the us into the Park. This reservoir, it's about thirty yards across. We've only fifty-five mares here. How many have we got ? I never counted them, better than a hundred ; Sir Tatton gave the word, and we left off early in May ; several good mares have never been touched with nothing, four, five, six, not one in this Park too young ; we've that Lanercost mare, dam of Monsieur Dobler, she's all we've got or ever had of that sort. That's by Caster, she goes into a Muscat Arab, bought at Hampton Court. The great grandam of that mare, it's supposed to be by Grey Orville from a pony that was at Waterloo, Sir Tatton will tell you all about it ; Grey Orville, he'd got a skip with a coach-horse some way. There are nineteen on the other side of Marramat ; we've seen about fifty. There are eight we haven't seen, other side of Colly Wood. There's one Wo- mersley here, sister to Gaspard, neither covered or nothing else ; most of them are Daniels, when we get at them below. That's a Russian ; this is an Andover out of a Caster mare ; it's a bit damaged in the eye ; the other's a Cossack out of sister to Grey Tommy ; three white legs, she's sister to Baronet ; there's sister to Juggler ; that's a Young Barefoot. This is either a Colonel mare or a Langar dam ; they're four-year- olds, I must look at my book : Woo I my lass ! No. 57, what marks ? ' A star, a spot on the nose, far hind-leg white nearly up to hock ;' that will be Colonel. We've seven or eight Andovers, they suit Daniels, they're on a longer leg. 140 Scott and Sebright. " I don't see any Recovery mares ; Sir Tatton sent six to him : King of Hearts' dam is from one. We had Sir Joseph here ; he looked the yearlings over, and King of Hearts was the only one he had out the second time. He didn't buy him for all that ; and he just beat his Duke Rollo. It would be at Northampton, Sir Tatton. That's a Defence mare : we've only one Andover and Pyrrhus ; they both go back to Lord Fitzwilliam's Amadis blood. Mr. Kirby hired him ; he came once a week to the kennels at Eddlethorpe ; he got the best hunters Lord Fitzwilliam ever had He was got by Quicksilver, the same horse as Cer- vantes. There's Gaspard's dam, and the chestnut, she's by Sleight of Hand out of Ragged Petticoat by Comus. That brown's been ridden in the harrier stables a bit of one season. " That black un's a Fernhill ; I don't fancy the sort much, game horse too for all that. Most of them down here are Daniels ; that wants to be out of sight, Poverty's been there since it came from Heslington Wold. That Andover out of Caster mare wants to be shown ; she thinks herself better than common. Don't be so proud, Miss I That Daniel's out of a Lanercost mare ; she's very like him. That one never had a tail to speak of, and never will have. That's by Fugleman ; next her's an Andover, let me see my book, a twin ; yes ! she will be, Sir Tatton, out of sister to Billy-go-Rarely. That was one of Lord Waterford's names ; he put him in his drag, and drove Mr, Legard down to Epsom first time he'd been in harness. That mare's the best of Daniel's ; the thin end of them we picked out to go to York, the thick's not covered yet. A Little " We're through them at last ; they're Arithmetic, middle-sized, these Daniel mares ; they're not big, still they're wide mares. How many have we ? I don't know rightly, Sir Tatton ; there are twenty-five two-year-olds at the kennels; eleven threes Turf Cracks. 1 4 1 we picked out to keep, they're at Heslington Carr ; eleven three-year-old colts down in Holderness on the Marshes ; the fours and fives are about home : I can't just tell about the yearling fillies ; I've not cast them up lately ; there'll be thirty-two or thirty-three of one kind or another, fifteen on farmers' seeds, eighteen left at home ; I don't know without looking at my book where they are. This is the tally-board, I've just done chalking up all the filly foals with their marks. I'll copy them out some evening into the book ; there we fix them ; there'll be twenty-five this year, one ot them's dead. We'll begin swinging them at the stack, when we've done with York, to teach them to lead ; we do two or three stack-fulls a day, eight a piece about two hours at a time, that's quite long enough. We've been a good deal bothered with these worms they're five or six inches long but I think we've matched 'em ; we give them a gill of cold drawn linseed oil, and an ounce of spirits of turpentine ; it brings them away in scuttles full ; they've forks at both ends, and they fairly eat through the bowels. " Sir Tatton's had these laurels by the The Sire road-side cut down lately. Daniel gets Paddocks, plenty of swing here ; he goes once round the pad- dock, whoever's here ; now he does that nicely ; Sir Tatton still says, I hang to him a bit ; look at those legs moving, just like a fiddle for all the world ; Derby course, indeed ! he could have run to Derby that day, if Frank had asked him. He mastered them a bit latterly at Mr. Scott's ; aye ! it's a good colour ; dark chestnut's as pretty as aught when it's blooming. Now, you Colsterdale men ! he's up in that corner among the peacocks ; he's as proud as any of them in his way ; he needn't be ; it's a very silky skin, but he's no credit to himself, he tears at himself ; his thighs are straight enough, they'll just suit the Daniel crook ; Sir Tatton looked at Loupgarou, and five or six more before he bought him. Take care of him ; keep a look out or 142 Scott and Sebright. he'll begin his dot-and-go-one, and wheedle up to you. He's all wire ; he was a great jumper with hounds in his pauper days, so they tell me ; well, he's had a rare chance now. Be off with you ! None of your tricks ! We'll shut him up with his gay company. That will be the bell, Sir Tatton." Old Times at From Sledmere to Ashton Hall is a Ashton Hail. j O ng leap, but we must make it for chro- nology's sake. It lies about three miles from Lan- caster, and in the Duke of Hamilton's zenith, no paddocks were a surer find for a St. Leger winner. They are like a fortified town, with walls seven feet high, which, with a belt of planting, form a good bulwark against the breezes of the Irish Ocean. Un- derley was twenty-five miles away, and Muley had not then made for it a name. The Duke was very often at the Hall, and he had a jovial' custom that the sailors, when they came in from abroad, and passed on their route from Glaston Dock to Lancaster, should make it their half-way house, and pledge Old England in a horn of ale. The Duke's and their Polls' healths were not forgotten, and if his Grace was about, they would huzza, till for peace and quietness he was compelled to show himself and bow. His own dress was quite of the good old fashion, and he was not above grey breeches and drab gaiters-, with a double- breaster of blue and yellow stripes, and a large drab coat. His horses were his great delight at home, but he cared very little for seeing them run, and had the re- The Best of su ^ ts across the hills by express. When all Good Com- he did get as far as York, he stayed with pany." Archbishop Harcourt at Bishopthorpe, and they would watch the running together from a stile. It was said that they gradually shifted their ground nearly half-a-mile in six or seven years, and finally finished opposite the Gravel Road. Eyes as keen had been content to look on at the running from Turf Cracks. 1 43 Middlethorpe Corner, and it was there that Mr. Bethell's Ruler broke his fetlock-joint in '82, and the three young Sykeses, then boys with a tutor at Bishop- thorpe, were the first to get up to him. The era of 1 808-10 was a merry one at Lancashire Turf Ashton Hall. The York Herald was Rivals - The Life of that day, and "Nap's" battles were keenly looked for and talked over by the lads, amid the in- tervals of cricket, nine pins, and nurr and spell. Of all such games, his Grace was a great patron, and he engaged Mendoza, whose "limbs like an ox" were the astonishment of that little community, to come down and instruct his sons. Theakstone trained for him, and Charles Marson, who looked after Petronius and Ashton in turn, rode his light weights. There had been some little dispute between his Grace and Lord Strathmore, as to which should have the black jacket, which, by-the-by, had no gold braid till Mr. Bowes came of age. The former gave way, and adopted a blue belt, and went to Lancaster to see Marson win- ning the first race in it on Ploughboy, and getting carried shoulder high into the stand. Preston was then quite the county race course, and his Grace made it a point of honour to go there, and pit his steeds specially against Lord Derby, Sir Thomas Stanley, and Mr. Clifton. Sir Peter had long been the Touch- st. Leger Sons stone of Knowsley, and Mr. Clifton of Sir Peter - owned the first St. Leger winner Fyldener, and the Duke of Hamilton the last in that extraordinary triple succession of luck (i 806-8) which has never before or since fallen to the lot of one sire. Petronius went to 100 to 3 at starting, as a report got wind that he had flung his lad behind the Rockingham, and lunched up to his knees in clover. Ashton was tried to be as good as him at /Ibs. that autumn, and hence the stable considered that they had four horses good enough to win the St. Leger, and pretty well proved 144 Scott and Sebright. it by running first and second. Ashton was quite a hunter-looking horse, with very hairy legs, which " took a lifetime to dry," and none of the elegance of his reputed sire Walnut. The latter never ran, as he broke his shoulder, which united with a curious knot at the point, and brought about a complete wasting of the foreleg and foot. The Waxy Sultan's head, Memnon's Doncaster Blood. coat, Oiseau's ability to "give his year away and win the St. Leger," and Whisker's quarters seem still to haunt the old school of sportsmen. The Duke of Grafton was wont to say, " Let us find the horse, and then we'll talk about the jockey ;" and Pene- lope and Waxy furnished him with a worthy pair in Whisker and Whalebone. Short legs, high-bred nostrils, and very prominent eyes were the principal trade-marks of the Waxy stock, and the mottled brown Whalebone was the smallest amongst them. The standard could never make him more than fifteen and half an inch, and as he did not seem likely to become fashionable, he was sold at seven for Whalebone at 5 IQ guineas. His old Petworth groom, Petworth. Dayman, enthusiastically says of him " He was the lowest, and longest, and most double- jointed horse, with the best legs eight and ? half below the knee and worst feet I ever saw in my life." The latter were contracted and high on the heel, and became so Chinese boot-like and full of fever at last that he never moved out of his box. The Earl of Egremont tried to train him after he bought him with Octavius at Mr. Ladbroke's sale, but he never ran, and his principal occupation in training was to rear and knock his hoofs together like a pair of castanettes, a freak which once cost him three tumbles in a day. His hunters were good and mostly bays and browns, and Myrrha and Sir Her- cules were the last of his racing line. He was ten years at Petworth, but he did not seem to have Turf Cracks. 145 created much private veneration. No enthusiasts helped to rob him of his tail, and the kennel copper and the knacker claimed every hair. Octavius had quite his share of the ThePetworth mares, of which his lordship had at least Stud - thirty at Upwaltham, and his son Little John from Greyskin got several hunters, which were often slug- gish, and went blind. Among the thirty, only a tithe of which in one very slippery spring produced foals, were Wasp, the dam of Chateau Margaux ; and the Canopus mare, which twice over hit to Whalebone, with that natty little pair of Derby winners, Lapdog and Spaniel. Wanderer by Gohanna was another great Petworth character, and grandsire on the dam's side to Sir Hercules. He was quite a slug when he was put in training, but all alive after his sweats, and so restless as a sire that he would fight a stick, or toss a stone or straws about all day, and vary matters by kicking all night. Blacklock's dam, the chestnut Rosa- Biackiock's lind by Coriander, was originally one of Youth. the Wiganthorpe stud in Atalanta and Faith's day. Mr. Garforth also bred his sire Whitelock " a naggish horse with a big, coarse head and plumb forelegs." He became the property of Sir Mark Sykes, who named him from the lock in his tail, and sold him to Mr. Sylvester Reed for three hundred. Mr. Reed had the offer of Blacklock as a foal for fifty, but he neither liked his forelegs nor the remembrance of his dam, when he saw her crawling past his window to Mr. Moss's, through the streets of York, after she had been purchased for 3/. Aristotle's forelegs were not more "plumb" than Blacklock's, and hence Tom Dawson begged Mr. Meiklam, who was very loath to risk it, not to part with him as a yearling. Blacklock's most desperate race was four miles over York Racing Finish with Magistrate, whom he barely defeated of Blacklock. by a head. The severity of it finished them both ;, L 146 Scott and Sebrigkt. Magistrate never ran again, after his defeat the next day by St. Helena, who had been pulled up in the first race, a mile from home, Blacklock was saddled no more. He used to lead the unhappy Duchess such dances, that Tom Peirse exclaimed in his anguish, when he saw the great half-moon head and seven-leagued stride at work, "Father's going to kill the mare by following that half-thick" John Smith was of the same opinion, and thought that " if Eclipse himself came again he couldn't beat him ;" and Tommy Sykes was so con- fident before the St. Leger, that he would give Jack- son no orders, but "Rid him as thou likes, lig thee I lands down and let Jiim stride away, and distance them" Sire and Sons Jemmy Rooke had Joe and Dick of Tramp. Andrews on Wychwood Forest, when he was sold up, and it was quite a novelty to see the latter eat hay with his giraffe-like neck, from the top of his rack. In ugliness of ears and head altogether, he was almost unsurpassable, and so light in the body that he required next to no training. Tramp was narrow like all his tribe, when a yearling, but he gradually became one of the grandest boned horses in England, and Herring's likeness of him at the Tickhill Castle Paddocks makes him well worthy to be the sire of Lottery from Mandane. This horse's finest race Lotte was ^ or ^ a t Doncaster Cup, whose wan- derings and uses by land and river were so varied and remarkable. He made his own running all the way, and just beat Longwaist by half a neck, and scattered his field nearly half a mile. Sam Day still says that it " was like going after a steam-engine," and that he " suffered to keep near him at all" He always went like a machine, and the trainers declared that they " could hear him a mile off." Sam was not on Longwaist, when that horse had such a great finish with Fleur de Lis, who nearly fell on his head, and left Sam, as he pathetically says, " hanging by the spurs." Turf Cracks. 147 Lottery was a curious horse to meet, as he threw his off foreleg quite out. Still he was not p ecu iiar Action so eccentric as Tomboy, who threw of Lottery and both legs clean round, and had all his action so completely from behind, that Johnny Gray said of him when he rode him at Durham, " He couldnt get on to his legs, without first sitting down on .his tail." Lottery was an unsatisfactory, erratic The Last of genius all his days. He was tried to run Lottery, away from Barefoot in private, but he would hardly make an effort in the St. Leger, and Mr. Watt did not care to run him after the false start. In his last race, he whipped in sixth to Fleur de Lis at Doncaster, and the first of his get, Chorister from the dam of Crow- catcher, won the St. Leger. Finally he became a Government sire at the Bois de Boulogne, with Cadland and Physician, and the fame of the three quite spoilt the sport of Palmer at Viroflay, who had made 2OOO/. in three years, or sufficient to stock a farm in Poland, by fees from the Parisians. They came over by cart- loads every Sunday to see Rainbow and the Viroflay mares, and clubbed from five to twenty francs, to have the door opened. Catton by Golumpus was stout and The Catton useful, and with unsurpassable legs. Old Tribe. Tom Taylor (or " Catton Tom" as he was then called), looked after him when he was with Sammy King, who had always the credit of being rather tender with his horses. Mulatto was more blood-like than the ma- jority of the Cattons ; Royal Oak, the sire of Slane, ran first as Mr. Catton ; and the game Ossian had to live the greater part of his time " on the muzzle." Slane had a sad aptitude for getting roarers, and there were no less than ten or eleven by him in one year. Like The Princess, who very much resembled Altisi- dora in her chief points, their specialty was to be game .and slow. L 2 148 Scott and Sebrigkt. Reveller was a thick-necked, fine goer, with square hips and short ribs, and ran with his head low. The defeat of Underhand and Beeswing at Newcastle, or Isaac at Warwick, never struck the beholders with Dr. Syntax and such a chill, as did that of Dr. Syntax at Reveller. Preston. It was there that the little brown won his Maiden Plate, and for seven years in succession carried off the Old Gold Cup. So sure did the Guild make of his winning the eighth, that they had prepared gilt shoes, and marshalled the pro- gramme of a procession in his honour. The race was worthy of the anticipations it raised, as Reveller and Jack Spigot came for it, but Dr. Syntax divided them at the finish. If spurred or whipped, " Doctor" would invariably swerve, and Bob Johnson and Bill Scott, (who rode him in a few of his first races), would never venture to do more than talk to him, and hiss at him in an extremity. Death of Dr. The old horse passed into William Syntax. Edwards's hands, with a promise to Mr. Riddell, that he would never give him away. He be- came so paralyzed that a party of Newmarket jockeys and trainers were invited to see him shot, and buried in the paddocks behind the Palace. They gave three times three over his grave, and then toasted liis me- Ral h mory. Ralph, from a sister to Altisidora, was one of the very few chestnuts he ever got. He had the same prominent eye, and such a velvety skin that critics were wont to say of him that he had no hair except on his mane and tail. A very fine cross was lost by his death, which was occasioned by his being poisoned before the Ascot Cup. He won, but pulled up in a desperate state of gasping, and the perspiration and distension of the nostrils never seemed to leave him. Scottish Cracks Scottish racing was in its best form oCOlllSn v^iclCK.S. i it /r r^-f i * when Mr. Sharpe became secretary, in 1827, to the Caledonian Hunt. He has stood to it, Turf Cracks. 149 and seen old friends drop off, year after year, till very few of those who sat round the ordinary at Edinburgh in 1828, and first drank his official health, are left to greet him in his October tryst. Leda by Filho da Puta, and purchased from Mr. Houldsworth, com- menced matters for him by winning two races at that meeting ; but although his own luck with the white body and blue sleeves has been but scant, he has held what proved trumps, either as dams or runners for others. From Leda he bred Martha Lynn, the dam of Voltigeur ; he gave away Old Bessy, the dam of Myrrha, and grandam of Wild Dayrell ; he sold Butterfly to William Oates, as a foal ; he did not stand to the steeplechaser Mauchlin, and lastly he did not bid quite enough for Isaac. His brother, General Sharpe, Sir A. Ramsay, Sir David Moncrieff, and Sir William Maxwell were all thoroughly staunch, and so was Sir John Heron Maxwell, whose ancient brown cob was nearly as well known as himself. The two Maxwells were exceedingly alike, and when Charles Lord Queensberry joined them at the side of the cords, the three in their cool calico waist- coats made up, as the agriculturists have it, " a very thick and level pen." Sir William trained at Bogside, with Richard Greathead, and had Monreith, brother to Filho, while Springkell and Fair Helen flourished under "Old Nelson" and his lad sir John Max- " Finkle," in Sir John's own park. There well and "Old was a good deal of quiet humour about Sir John, and on one occasion when " Old Nelson" rather demurred to his recommendation about taking Springkell back to his stable by the least crowded way, after winning the Cup, he stopped any further bounce by solemnly pulling off his hat in the streets of Carlisle, and saying, with a most courteous bow, "7 beg your pardon, Mr. Nelson, for presuming to give you a little advice about my own horse':'' 150 Scott and Sebright. His Fair Helen was a red grey, with a most pecu- liarly arched neck and weaselly body, and the potions,, which were administered to her during the season, no doubt affected her foals. Springkell was a round, useful, thick-necked hunter ; but good as the two- were, their names are quite wiped out of the stud- book. Perlet, by Peter Lely, was one of the first Canteen and ever trained in the Holme at Hoddom Springkell at Castle, and he bettered the instruction Carlisle, at ) um f r i es : Du t it was when the neat little Canteen came from Brecongill to meet Spring- kell, for the Carlisle Cup, that Dumfriesshire made its great exodus southwards. Difficulties of Even old Mr. Bird, the Hoddom the Hoddom butler, was persuaded on to horseback, Butler - for the first time in his life, and rode the twenty miles, with the tails of his dress-coat pinned in front of him. The course was too deep to suit Canteen, and hence the Cup returned in the Spring- kell carriage, and Mr. Bird retired into the fastnesses of his Border Tower, leaving his bark in the saddle, and his crowns in the hands of others. However, Mr. Kirby had a still more bitter recollection of Canteen, as he laid 1000 to 5 against Jerry and him coupled, as first and second for the St. Leger. Matilda Matilda was sadly fidgetty, and in and out in her running, after the St. Leger. When she was taken up as a yearling late in September, she was only fourteen-one-and-a-half, but still she was half an inch bigger than The Colonel. Perhaps a handsomer little mare and big horse than she and Mameluke never met in a race. Eventually Mr. Petre gave her to the Duke of Cleveland, and she bred Henriade, Alzira, and Foxberry, and some other fair things. Purchase of Rowton had his beauty as a heritage Rowton. from Oiseau and Camillus, and John Scott thus sums up the delight of his heart, as " long Tiirf Cracks. 151 and low, not fifteen at the Leger, calf-kneed, straight hocks, no girth, and a regular tickler." He was rather light-fleshed, and not one to come every day. His dam Katharina was bred precisely like Augusta, by Woful from a Rubens mare, and he was bought at her foot, from Mr. Allen, after dinner. The bargain was a regular Dutch auction. During dinner, Mr. Allen was deaf to anything less than five hundred ; but after the first bottle, he was down at four. With the second bottle, the colt stood at three ; but John Scott had his guard up, and no business was done, so Mr. Allen offered to drive him home, and they shook hands for two hundred at parting. Never but once, that his friends can remember, did John Scott miss anything peculiar when he looked over a horse, but it never struck him that Rowton had no warts on the inside of his legs, and his brother won a sovereign from him on the point. In his slow paces, he was not remarkable, and he lurched like a fox with his head down. To all appearance, his St. Leger His Race for finish with Voltaire was quite as despe- the St - Leger. rate as Mundig's Derby one ; but Bill Scott always said that he won quite easily. He certainly allowed to his friends that he " got the fog down his throat ;" but his private report to his brother was, that he left off riding at the distance, after forcing the pace from the hill, and could not get his chestnut to begin again. Like the sisters to Touchstone and Lanercost Moss Rose, sister to Velocipede, was a velocipede on very faint reflection of him, and not fond the Turf - of more than half-a-mile. Her brother was bought for I20/. from Mr. Moss, after Mr. Houldsworth had said that he would not give sixpence for such a slight- legged one. His mettle under leg difficulties elicited this eulogy from Bill Scott, " that if his legs had been cut off he'd have fought on his stumps ;" and the way in which, four-year-old cripple as he was, he cut down 152 Scott and Sebrig/it. Bessy Bedlam over the T.Y.C., at York, was his highest triumph of speed. His first great race was won at York August, during a meeting, in which Mulatto and Fleur-de-Lis were winners, and Jerry, Laurel, Humphrey Clinker, and Emma were not ; and as a parting gift he beat Dr. Faustus, Economist, and a good field for the Liverpool Trades Cup. Soon after that, he ran away with his lad, and broke down so badly after galloping several times round the field in front of Whitewall, that they had the greatest difficulty to support him back into his stable with sacks. The Colonel John Scott considered him in his prime, quite 2ilbs. better than The Colonel, who was bred by Mr. Wyvill, of Burton Con- stable, and bought by Mr. Petre, as a yearling, in settlement of some confederate bets. The latter was short and pudgy, with fine speed, and high and fighting in his action, "ready to curl up into a mousehole, if he was reached, but very difficult to reach." Charles Marson Charles Marson's ten years of service at Lord produced about 6o,ooo/. to the Exeter stable, as he won or received forfeit 207 times; and hence it is hardly to be wondered, thr.t with such a sterling memento, his lordship stuck so long and so tenaciously by his Sultans. Previous to Marson's engagement, his lordship had seventeen horses at Prince's, but with no very great result ; and Augusta, Holbein, and The Athenian, with Robinson up, were the first of the new era. When Sultan, of the lovely head, long back ribs, and muscular quarters, was pur- chased at seven, his legs had become quite fine, and The Sultan he won one out of four races in the stock. narrow blue stripes. The T.Y.C. was his forte, but he could get well over the Flat. He was a long horse, and many were wont to compare him to the prints of The Darley Arabian. In his last trial. Tiirf Cracks. 153 a bad-tempered half-brother to Galata won, with Augusta second, and then his lordship put him out ot training, and sent ten mares to him. His stock were fleshy and good doers ; and for beauty, Vanish had no peer among them. Enamel by Phantom had been a successful horse for the stable before the Sultans were ready ; and it was after the Two Thousand that the Burleigh agent and Mr. Tattersall raced off to Simon's Bath, on Exmoor, to look after his Rubens dam. Enamel got his name from the gold patches on one quarter. This colt's two remarkable white stockings were well known to all Newmarket; and his way of nodding his great, lop-eared, and flesh-nosed head, secured an uncommon affectionate look-out for " Old Baldy" about the Bushes. Beiram was nervous and irritable, and Beiram so wet through when he came to the July post, that Bill Arnull vowed he " would never want sweating again." Running, however, hardened his confidence, and he pulled up as dry as a bone. Being thrown up for two years effected nothing, and he came out in Rockingham's Goodwood Cup only to break down. Even in his prime, a half-brother to Zinganee could give him any weight, and was con- sidered by Marson the best he ever trained. This colt unfortunately slipped upon some wet bricks in his box, and was good for nothing afterwards. Green Mantle could get two miles well ; but Green Mantle she would jump all ways but the right and Varna, one at the post. Nothing could be more deceptive in her trials, as she was beat to nothing by Bessie before the July ; but her speed, when she meant it, was such, that a loss of forty yards in the Clearwell went for very little. Hers was a very glorious year with Lord Exeter, as Green Mantle and Varna were first and second in the Oaks, and Patron won the Two Thousand and four other races that spring before he went for the Derby. This colt had beaten j 54 Scott and Sebmght. her easily in an A. F. trial ; and Lord Exeter, who would try three times over if it did not exactly suit him, and worked the weights by a clock, tried them in opposite directions on the same course, to be sure of the form. Gaiata Ripping Galata was, after all, the best of the them up. Burleigh mares, and in the Ascot Cup of 1833, Will Arnull received the daring orders to " rip up Lucetta," and acted up to them most effectually. Her timidity was such, that Marson was obliged to train her alone, or else she would not have touched an oat. She was leggy, light-fleshed, and with large feet, and if she was held she would utterly beat her- self, as she proved in a trial with Beiram. In the Port Stakes, Sam Darling had the cue to let her go, and finish them in the first mile. " We' II catch the countryman" said Robinson to Will Wlieatley, " be- fore he gets to the cords f but " Well, y 'ou may go and do it ; Pit stop on this side of the Ditch" was Will's only reply. Lord Chesterfield, Mr. Payne, Col. Udney, and Marson were all at the Ditch gap, and Darling sa literally obeyed his orders to " catch her by the head and come along," that there was soon a fearful spread-eagle of Emiliana, Archibald and Co. In fact, the Ditch gazers did not think it was a r?ce at all, and declared that there was something running away; but Marson soon informed them, " That's Galata; they'll never catch her" and he and Col. Udney each drew Will Chifney of a tenner upon it. It took a good deal to excite Lord Jersey ; but on this occasion he was as pleased as when he jumped out of his phaeton after Cobweb had won the One Thousand, and left the gout behind him. "Hold her fast, Darling" he roared, as he galloped down the side of the course. "All right, my lord" was the reply. " If I was going to Bury I should ivin" Darling's Best Darling was pitted successfully against Race. Robinson in the dead heat for the Grand Turf Cracks. 155 Duke Michael, between Muley Ishmael and Amurath. The first race was not so severe ; but Darling had his orders to force the running as much as possible the second time. He did not like his job ; but Lord Exeter said, " You've a great man against you, keep up your spirits" and " a pony" from his lordship, and a twenty-pound note from Lord George Bentinck, rewarded his steady riding. In the decider Robin- son had a taste coming down the Bushes Hill, and Sam watched his shadow over the left, in the rays of the afternoon sun, and calling on his horse almost at the instant that he saw it glide slightly back, he got a clear length, and was never quite reached again. The public had a notion that Cama- Camarine and rine was far beyond Lucetta in point of Taurus. speed, but had no chance with her over a Queen's Plate course ; and that she required to run with her near leg first. If she started on the off one, said they, she swung it round so much, that, unless she had been steadied and made to change, she would soon have been in distress. Robinson, however, declared that the former was the very best mare he ever rode, and that Lucetta had no chance with her at any distance, and he knew nothing whatever of the leg peculiarity. Taurus stuck well up for two miles and a quarter to her in the Jockey Club Plate, over the Beacon course. He. had won an A. F. handicap so cleverly under 9st. 3lb., that his Grace was determined to give him full Newmarket measure. Robinson made steady running on Camarine, to take the edge off his old friend's speed ; but the victory was a costly one, and neither of them saw the post again. " Our Jim" felt so sure of the result in every way, that he went in vain to both owners to beg them not to run, but they would not heed him. Taurus was sixteen hands high, with enormous pace for a mile and a quarter, and a very beautiful horse to look at. William 156 Scott and Sebrigkt. Edwards bought him from Lord Warwick, at Tatter- sail's, and sold him to the Duke of Bedford. At three years old he suddenly became a high-blower, but he was tried to have such speed for three-quarters of a mile, that no other measure was ever taken of him. He was matched five times at half a mile, and as he would be going best pace in forty yards, scarcely anything could get to his shoulder at that distance. His sons, Oakley, John o' Gaunt, King of the Peak, &c., were all in the Bedford stable when Admiral Rous became the Duke's " Master of the Horse." The Duke of His Grace was very uncertain in his Bedford as a attendance at Newmarket. He seldom Racing man. came j n the S p r ' m g t and looked upon the October meetings more as a tryst where he could meet his Whig friends, than his horses. He was very seldom through his stables, and cared for a race- horse about as much as he did for a unicorn. None of his winners were ever painted, as he considered it " quite an acquired taste." Admiral Rous persuaded him to have occasional trials, but the only one he ever attended in Edwards's day, was when John o' Gaunt was tried before the Newmarket Stakes. His heart was not in " The Bushes ;" but roving back to the Cowper's Oak of his earlier days, with Hercules and Marmion waiting for the word to draw. Pearce's canvas has placed him once more among them, on his white Shamrock, with Colonel Higgins on his rat- tailed horse, Major Macginnes, Mr. Magniac on The The Oakley Saddle (which Mr. Phillimore bequeathed Meet - to him when its Newmarket match days were over), old Sam Whitbread, on his odd-coloured chestnut, Captain Newland, and George Beers on Cognac, looking as fierce as if he had just pulled down a fox, and was breaking him up in the spirit. At Tedworth, too, his Grace would be on the flags with Carter for hours to the last, tracking back lines T^{,rf Cracks. 157 of blood, and recalling the work of every hound in his own and the Grafton pack ; but for racing he had no real heart, and merely wished his stable to pay- John o' Gaunt was always tried to be better than Oakley ; but he put out incipient ring- Envoy, and bones, and no one ever knew how good Magog the he was. Edwards swore by Envoy, as the best, bar Ralph, that he ever trained, and the chestnut was an equal favourite with the Duke. He ran quite untired for the Drawing Room Stakes, and hence the House party had no reason to wonder that they had not heard of him. No horse required so much long walking exercise, in addition to his work, at least five days a week ; and the petting and lack of exercise at Woburn made him so round and foul- blooded, that he could never be trained again. Oakley and Robinson " knew every post on the Flat," and over a T.Y.C. he was just about 5lbs. better than Celia. He might have run further, but his great muscular top hardly comported with his small knees and hocks ; and as he showed a tendency to put out curbs, they dare not go on with him for a longer course. Magog was bought by the Duke for 3OO/., from Mr. Ransome, and for three-quarters of a mile he was immensely fast ; but his leg gave way at three, and his temper soon after. He quite ate up to his weight, and when his rations were gone, he would have been ready to take his turn at a pig-trough. The Earl of Albemarle was in the The Late Earl Palace stable at the same time as His of Albemarle. Grace ; but Barcaroll's Oaks chance was put out by illness, after she had won the One Thousand, and Mr. Kirby's 4.00!. cheque was ready. His lordship formed very little judgment about horses, and as Dr. Johnson said of his Derbyshire friend, " His talk is of sheep and bullocks" He would, in fact, have never kept horses at all, but for the very laudable feeling that, as 1 5 8 Scott and Sebright. Master of the Horse, he had no right to see Ascot racing at other people's expence. Still, as is often the case when owners take things easy, and do not make their lives miserable by watching the market, his green-and-white cap had a good time of it with Ralph and the Emperor ; and he purchased Royal George for 1507. from Edwards, and sold him to the foreigners for more than thrice that sum. The ill Bad Beaufort luck of the stable seemed to concentrate Luck - itself on the Duke of Beaufort. What- ever he bought, bred, or borrowed, turned out badly, and when it really seemed on the cards, his horse would tumble down, or run out of the course, or go amiss. MuleyandMuley Muley was a good runner, despite his Moloch. somewhat odd pins, and Muley Moloch was rather high on the leg, and rather short quartered. His Champagne and York Derby wins had made him a hot St. Leger favourite in Yorkshire, but he never had a chance, and they hedged their opinion after the race, by saying that his teeth had been so bad that he lived on balls of meal for six weeks before. Mr. Tattersall, who had the charge of the Underley stud, was not a little fond of selling them at Doncaster, and it was from Marpessa, one of the old Muley 's daughters, and Alice Hawthorne, his granddaughter, that Pocahontas and Thormanby sprang. The Grandsire of Master Henry, the sire of Touchstone's Touchstone, dam, j s embalmed in Sam Day's memory, as being one of his favourite platers ; and especially great in mud. John Scott had never seen Touch- stone till the Liverpool St. Leger, when the brown made his own running, and was beaten by General John Scott's Chasse. Godfrey Kirkley, who was with First Sight of Mr. Riddell, trained him, and had him tone - as fat as a bull ; but still Birdlime and Inheritor, who had just beaten Physician at 32lbs. for the two years, in the Cup, were behind him, Turf Cracks. 159 and Scott told Lords Derby and Wilton that he felt sure he could win the St. Leger. The beginning was not favourable, as he was put in the charge of a drunken groom to walk to Yorkshire, and got loose on the Lancashire moors for hours, where a sailor caught him and brought him to Sheffield. After such neglect, he arrived at Malton in a pain- His Mishaps and fully weak state, and a course of Peruvian Medicine. bark had to be resorted to before they dared to work him. What with this and his jaundice, John Scott seldom had a horse which required so much doctoring. A record of the calomel and other drugs which he swallowed would form a portion of Whitewall history, as remarkable as the recovery of its Prince Llewellyn, who answered to the old ale and port, and won two races after he had been covered up in the stall as dead, and his grave had been dug in the paddock. He had his final polish at Hambleton, and when Bill declared after the trial to ride Lady le Gros, Dar- ling was applied to for Touchstone. However, Lord Sligo had been beforehand, and Sam weighed for Bran, and declares to this day that Touchstone stopped to him at the finish ; while Bob Johnson " dodged backwards and forwards on Chasse before us and between us, all over the course." Touchstone was only third up the Mostyn-mile Mostyn mile to Intriguer and Birdlime, Martyrs. both of his year. Oddly enough, as soon as his flag was lowered, Blenkhorn led out his Leger successor Queen ot Trumps for her maiden race, but although they were both at the same meeting the next autumn, and each walked over for two stakes, they never met at the post. In 1835, when he had just shown in good Cup form at Doncaster, he again failed up the Mostyn mile, but he was before Birdlime, who essayed that heart-breaking hill four times in vain. At five years old, he did a great thing with Hornsea and Scroggins at Epsom, the week before the Ascot Cup, 1 60 Scott and Sebright. jn which he beat Rockingham and Lucifer. His near fore-ankle was never very good, and even in his first Ascot Cup race, it had almost risen to the dignity of " a leg." Its chance of rising to it was furthered by the wild notions of the man in charge, who persisted Ascot Cup in doctoring it during John Scott's Tremblings, absence at Manchester, with hot oils instead of Gowland's lotion. Still, it was 100 to I on him if the leg stood, though Connolly and Pavis had been clever enough to get on nearly 5ooo/. against him, and it was half-past-twelve before Mr. Hill would release them. Joe Rogers was another of the sceptics at Death's, and expressed such a confident determina- tion to eat him if he won, that John Scott could not refrain from subsequently sending his compli- ments, and a request to know how " he should like him cooked." Touchstone's Touchstone was a peculiar horse in Peculiarities. every way . He had very fleshy legs, and turned his hocks out so much, and went so wide be- hind, that a barrel could have been got between his legs when he was galloping. He went with a straight knee ; and in short he was nearly the oddest goer that ever cleared its pipes in good air on Langton Wold, as he pitched and yet stayed as well. Ground made no appreciable difference to him, but he was desperately lazy at exercise, and could hardly be kicked along on most days. As a beginner he did not excel, and his fine speed was quite his greatest point. It was a very hard matter to catch him when he was once set agoing, and no horse pulled harder. If he was at all stale, it would never do to squeeze him too much, or he would swerve to the left like a shot. He just lived into his 3ist year, and although that wondrous hind action in his walk rather failed him, and he was quite wasted over the back and loins, he could wave his flag and march very proudly round his court-yard at Eaton. For two years he had been Turf Cracks. 1 6 1 on the wane, but still he never had an hour's illness at the stud, and never had a dose of medicine in Cheshire till just before he died. He was quite a valetudinarian, and it was remarkable to see how on wet days he would retreat, quick march, to his shed, and stand earnestly watching the weather. There was appa- rently great pain in the head for three days before his death, and he took nothing but a little gruel, and scarcely any notice of Fisher, who had attended him fur seven years. His feet were all taken off, and the greater part of his mane and tail, and sent to the Hall, and he was buried in the middle of the stable-yard. Till within the last three years, he was His Descen- a very sure stock-getter, but not partial dants - to young mares, nor to old ones till May or June. He got his sires especially in every form, and we fancy that Surplice was the finest and biggest of them, Orlando the most beautiful and blood-like, and Touch- wood more like himself than any of them, but on a larger scale. His luck with distinguished mares was variable. There was Orlando from Vulture, Newmin- ster and Nunnykirk from Beeswing, Cotherstone from Emma, Surplice from Crucifix, Assault from Ghuznee ; but Alice Hawthorne and Lady Evelyn failed, Eller- dale, Inheritress, and Queen Mary missed; Refraction and Canezou were not very lucky; Miss Twickenham, Ellen Middleton, Pocahontas, Barbelle, and Martha Lynn never honoured him with a visit; and Mr. John- stone's Harriot was the last mare that went to him. He and Liverpool were selected by the late Duke of Orleans for four of his best mares, when with Edgar Pavis, and then with Charles Edwards, that true- hearted sportsman held his racing court at Chantilly. As a general thing, his stock were best at a mile, bad on their legs after three, and, like him, with no great action in their slow paces. Jereed could live with him well at weights for M 1 62 Scott and Sebright. jereed and age, and John Scott quite hoped to stand Mundig. on him for the Derby instead of Mickle Fell, that anything but brilliant Brother to Mundig. It was not to be ; he was all well at eight one night, but a secret foe got at him before five next morning, and a glance at his legs told the treacherous tale. Mundig was a very moderate horse, and Consol was his schoolmaster. Still he convinced the brothers so completely that he was worth backing for the Derby after his " Yorkshire gallop" in clothes with Marcian over the D.I., that the double had to be promptly put on the touts. They had " got" one of the stable lads, and so the chestnut and Consol were started off, as if they had given up Epsom, and were going home, and then turned back after a six miles walk, when the lad had fully gazetted their departure for the North. Although the chestnut had never run in public, he came to 6 to i in a few hours, and those who had been most active in " drawing" the lad, immediately said that it " was a nice robbery, and the Scotts ought to be ashamed of themselves." Mundig's Derby When he ran for the Derby, Lord Da y- Chesterfield lent John a bad-mouthed pony, which landed him among the furzes. At last his rider got him straight and milled him well across the Downs, and at their next effort he cannoned a carriage near the winning-post. He was barely pulled off that, when Lord Jersey rode up : " Well, Jolm, Fm sorry for you Ascot's won!' " Nozvt of the sort" said a cad with enough rags ready made on his back for a mop, "the old beggar in blacks won? " Has he?" said John, "you're the man for my business ;' and flinging him half-a-crown, he rode off to meet his horse and congratulate the young heir of Streatlam on his eighteen thousand. Bill Scott never rode a severer race, and he had to shout as loud to Nat to keep his colt from hanging on to him, as he did in the Satirist Leger when he summarily ordered him to pull Van Turf Cracks. 163 Amburgh to one side after coming round the bend, and " let me have a shy at Old John Day!' Hornsea, Scroggins, Carew, and Gla- Homsea, Scrog- diator were all contemporaries of Touch- gins, and stone at Malton, and when the three first were tried with him, Scroggins was beat a distance. Hornsea and Touchstone were regularly laid alongside each other at 2olbs. in the Doncaster Cup, and the young one was the better favourite of the two at start- ing 1 , and beaten a neck. The chestnut, the origin of whose wall-eyes once strangely puzzled a German was a " good, steady horse ;" but Carew, who sepa- rated Touchstone from Venison, Beeswing, and Gene- ral Chasse in the Doncaster Cup of the next year, and beat a Goodwood Cup field as well, was really "very moderate." He cut himself down in the St. Leger, to serve the narrow thin-fleshed Scroggins, of whom John Scott speaks as " queer in the pipes, but smart." Gladiator by Partisan was a very blood- 1-1 111 , * i. Gladiator. like, dark chestnut, but rather delicate, and requiring remarkable nicety in his preparation. John and William Scott gave ioo/. for him, and sold him to Lord Wilton for 2OO/., and a contingency of half the Derby and St. Leger. He lost the first, and never started again, but his price gradually rose to 8oo/., and finally to 2OOO/. For Sweetmeat's sake alone he was worth every penny of it, but he also left Queen Mary the dam of Blink Bonny and the gran- dam of Caller Ou. His sire Partisan was a beautiful, short-legged horse with a lovely head, straight hocks, and a clubby fore foot. Many of the elder trainers still recur to him fondly as "like a bit of machinery in his stride." His Patron, a half-brother to Augusta, was very good ; but Venison was the gamest and stoutest of his sons. Still that little fellow could never quite do himself justice, as his very long action hardly fitted him for forcing the running, as he was often obliged to do. M 2 1 64 Scott and Sebright. The mare Frailty was presented to John Scott by Mr. Petre, and was sent to Partisan, when she was rising five. There was nothing particular about her, but a very curby hock, which had sprung going round Ferguson's Corner at Catterick. Her Cyprian was Early Days of sent for a few months before breaking to Cyprian. M n Hebden at Appleton, among the Helmsley Moors, near the haunts of the renowned Jemmy Golding, who when he was rising ninety -two, thus addressed John Scott, " There are no hunters bred now-a-days, Mr. Scott. P II just away and buy some brood mares, and breed a few'' She was made quite a pet of in that country, and knew the taste of cheese- cakes, and all that sort of thing ; but Bill Scott did not think much of her Oaks chance when he " had a taste," and it hung upon her beating Aveline for a 4O/. stake at Malton, whether she went to Epsom at all. She had a hard time of it, as she walked into Surrey, and then back to Newcastle, and then home to Malton, and won both Oaks and Northumberland Plate, during the six weeks. Joe Wilkins the Aintree trainer, con- ducted her on a pony, and they travelled on an ave- rage twenty miles per day. She was terribly high- mettled, and never trained after four, and Songstress, also a winner of the Oaks, and Meteora, were her best foals. She never caused any death herself, and her ill-temper did not descend to her stock ; but one of them, Artful Dodger, hit a lad who was washing his feet with his hock on the jugular vein, and killed him outright on the spot. Purchase of Epirus, the Malton horse of '37, was Epirus. purchased along with his brother Epi- daurus from Mrs. Savile Lumley for i/oo/., with a 5OO/. contingency if he won the Leger, but it needed all John Scott's eloquence, in a two hours' confab, to get them at the price. Epirus was untried, and "the young beauty," as his mistress termed him in her delivery order to Hornshaw, was disqualified, or else Turf Cracks. 165 Elis's brilliant running, both as a two-year-old and with Bay Middleton a fortnight before, would have made the figure a much higher one. Langar filled a 25 sov. subscription at Tickhill Castle in the fol- lowing year, and such was Lord George's admira- tion for Elis, that he took a fourth of the forty sub- scriptions. The chestnut died there at last, and he is buried on one side of the hedge in the principal paddock, and Catton on the other. Epirus could stay well enough, al- H is Training though speed was his best point, and in the Me- his trial, in which he gave Cardinal Puff lolbs., seemed quite good enough for the St. Leger, He was the only horse that ever broke Bill Scott's collar-bone ; and as John Scott adds, " the only one I ever trained in the streets of London." Owing to there being no North- Western truck at liberty, he had to stay three days there in stables behind All Saints' Church, and he used to take long constitu- tionals from four A.M. up and down Regent-street. Sam Chifney had a heavy retainer to go down and ride him at the Potteries, but he never looked near, and Nat got a winning mount on him. Cardinal Puff bore a very distinguished The Trial of part in the great Don John trial, when Don John and the young one beat him at i2lbs. for the Cardinal Puff - year. George Nelson's orders were simply to " stand none of Bill's humbug, but come right through." Both Lord Chesterfield and Colonel Anson thought it mad- ness to try at that weight ; and at the far side of the hill Bill thought the young horse had the worst of it. He accordingly shouted to George to ease a bit ; but the more he shouted the harder went " The Admi- ral." Bill suffered a little, and caught his leader on the hill, " fairly jumping over me the moment he was touched with the spur." George, " who never made a mistake with the old un," gradually fancied himself in full command of The "Fleet," at Pigburn, and at 1 66 Scott and Sebright. The Colonel and last demanded, in his vinous valour, from the Admiral." Colonel Anson, whether he called himself a Colonel. However, he rode over special to Don- caster in the morning to apologize ; and the Colonel, who had the keenest appreciation, for years after, of his antics and carols on that memorable night, only replied, "Never mind, George; Pm glad to be blown up on such an occasion; you only ride another Don John trial, and you may do it again" Horse Whims. , Don J ohn detested Bill Scott, owing, it was supposed, to his having hit him twice with a whip in his box at York. All the carrots in the East Riding would not have reconciled them, and like Jack Spigot, it made him furious even to hear the sound of Bill's voice. The Princess took a dislike to every one at Whitewall, and after giving Jacob more trouble than half the stable to shoe, she ended by running John Scott and Markwell out of the paddock when they went to see her at Bretby. It is a pretty general opinion among trainers that horses cannot tell one person from another except by the A Horse's Know- voice, and that, in this respect, they are .ledge of Sound. ifc e the fairy "Fine Ear." Ellerdale, for instance, took no notice of Tom Dawson when he went to see her at Admiral Harcourt's som^ four or five years after she had left his stable ; but the mo- ment he said " Coachman /" she wheeled round, and struck at him quite viciously. Mentor was quite as odd this way, and he proved pretty well that the dis- like arises from the association of the voice with the orders at exercise. Mat Dawson had him under his charge for a short time in Scotland, when his legs were wrong ; and as he gave him no work, there was no raw established between them. Hence Mat quite laughed at the notion that the horse would not let him go up to him, if he heard his brother Tom's voice, and a bet of a new hat was made on it. They adjourned with some visitors to the box, and Mat got Turf Cracks. 167 on most affectionately with his old charge, till there came Tom's whisper from behind "Poor old Mentor T and the whole party were dispersed in a second. Even General Chasse, as gluttonous a feeder as ever faced a manger, would pause in his swallow, and grunt if he heard Bob Johnson's voice ; and Meretrix became so fidgety from hearing Fobert's at exercise, that he was obliged to employ a code of stick and hand signals to the boy. Charles XII. was a very curious-coated Purchase of horse, and very delicate at three. Like Charles xn. Touchstone, he had rather a queer time of it on Black- stone Edge (over which Sydney Smith had years before proved himself such a Hannibal in the " Im- mortal"), as he stuck there for three hours, with every trace broken, on his return from the Liverpool Cup. . In the same journey he had an equally narrow escape on the Liverpool platform, and hung on the ledge of it for minutes without injuring a hair. He came into Mr. Johnstone's hands in rather a curious way. That gentleman had always nursed the wish, while in India, to own one of the finest horses that money could buy on his return. Accordingly, when he did reach Eng- land, he commissioned Tom Dawson to buy him one for three thousand- " Better get two for that price" was Tom's counsel, and Hetman Platoffwas priced to him at I2OO/., and the Provost at I5uo/. The latter was not up to Mr. Johnstone's mark, and accordingly a bid of 2OOO/. was made for Euclid. " Pd sooner shoot him than take it" was Mr. Thornhill's reply, and at length it was decided to give the 3 shaped work in the " myres " served in 1 86 1 to keep up a faint association with Lanercost, Inheritor, and Despot, those knights of the straw body and green sleeves, who were once the presiding genii of the spot. The house where all the Dawsons were born and bred nestles at the foot of the hill, on which stands the rude wooden lighthouse, keeping watch and ward over the deep blue seaboard of the German Ocean, and we could hardly wonder that I'Anson has always kept his " Caller Ou" impressions, as the breezes " fresh fra the Forth" swept over us that July. On one side the yellow harvest fields of East Lothian were waving ; and Dirleton's woods grow green and fair down to the very edge of the beach. Following the " gently curving lines of creamy spray" to the right, the eye rests on the Bass Rock, ever clan- gorous with sea-fowl, and standing out blunt and bare from its wave-washed base and the cone-like emi- nence of Berwick Law ; while the distant range of the Fife Hills takes us back to Johnny Walker and his "dearies" before his View Halloo was heard at Wynnstay. Like Ambo, who revelled over the 7 , , , ~ 11 /i 111 Zohrab and Co. Mostyn mile, and Charity, the third Great Liverpool Steeple Chase winner, some of the best Gullane geldings took to the road at last. Wee Willie, Zoroaster, and Clym-o'-the-Clough, all came trotting out at the sound of the horn, to take their turn in the fourteen miles an hour Defiance; and N 2 1 80 Scott and Sebright. Pyramid, who led out of Edinburgh, when two bays and two greys, cross-fashion, was Mr. Ramsay's de- light, worked himself stone-blind in the cause. The old Ury lion was roused once more in his lair, and horsing this crack coach from Lawrencekirk to Aber- deen, and driving it many a stage, was as great a boon to him as getting up his dog Billy's muscle for another fight, or going through solemn pedestrian exercises, for the same end, with " my friend Tom Cribb." Scottish Coach- Even the gravest Edinburgh professors ing Days. liked to see the Ramsay coaches with their rich brass-mounted harness, and the scarlets and white hats, when the dashing young owner was on the box, and Alick Cooke, Jim Kitchen, George Murray, and Jamie Campbell were the reigning favourites. inheritor and Mr. Ramsay hunted the Carnwath the Ramsay country as well as the three Lothians, and as he did not scruple to give 1500 guineas for Lanercost, 1000 for The Doctor, and 850 for Inheritor, " Nimrod " might well find in him al- most the only breathing embodiment of his memorable Quarterly Review labours. His Inheritor was an old- fashioned weight-carrying hunter, with very long quarters, and big ribs and gaskins, but with rather a light ewe neck, and thinnish shoulders. Blinkhorn the trainer always compared him to old Walton, and said that his " action spoke vengeance : " and Harry Edwards, after he had won two Liverpool Cups on him in '37, declared that he had not been on such a horse since Jerry. In The Trades' Cup (in which he carried Qst. 4lbs. the highest weight it has ever been won with), he fairly kicked Snyders out of the race at the post, or as Harry phrased it in the weighing-house, " We just gave Snyders one-two for himself, and settled him." Vestment was a more chubby, but an unlucky sort of horse. He split his pastern, running- with Queen of Trumps, and " turned over here and Turf Cracks. 1 8 1 there," and finally received such a severe cut to the bone, that he died of a lock-jaw. Despot was long, low, and dark brown ; very honest, but with no great constitution ; and The Doctor, by Doctor Syntax, out of a sister to Zohrab, had especially fine quality, with nice symmetry, and ability to carry weight. Tom Dawson considers Lanercost the T - 111 Lanercost. finest-grown two-year-old he ever saw, and when he came up at that age to Tupgill, he could hardly believe he was the same yearling, " all belly and no neck," which he had seen at The Bush, at Carlisle, just after Mr. Ramsay had given I3O/. for him, because he was by his horse Liverpool. In fact, his crest became so muscular, that " we might have put a saddle on and fitted it." As a two-year-old, he was tried to do a good thing with Aimwell, on the High Moor ; but forcing him on for the trial spoilt him, and he went all to pieces during the winter, and had no business to come out at Catterick His defeat there by Jemmy Jumps was a sad disappointment to the Carlisle division ; but the spirits of his nominator, " Jim Parkin," never failed. This Cumberland Squire was a singu- Mr. James larly handsome man, of a commanding Parkin, height which quite carried off his bulk, and with a fund of mellow humour which never seemed to fail, whether in the hunting-field, on the coach-box, the yeomanry parade, or at his own table. When the great North Road was in its glory, and the Glas- gow, the Edinburgh, and Portpatrick mails used to be changing horses almost together in Carlisle each afternoon, and "the little Glasgow mail," with its two horses, achieved its thirteen miles an hour, then was Mr. Parkin in his glory too. It was strange, indeed, if he wasn't seen waiting at the Bush door, with his low-crowned hat, and his hands in his capa- cious pockets, and a droll good-humoured word for everybody, from baronet to ostler, to work one of 1 82 Scott and SebrigJit. them to Penrith ; or if the night was peculiarly in- viting, as far as Lancaster. If there was a steeple- chase or a horse show, he would be in the thick of it, keeping every one on the grin with his quaint comments and suggestions. If a Cumberland Eleven had to be carried to Greystoke, or anywhere to play a match, he would invariably get up a team of greys to take them ; and it was said that he was so sincerely disgusted when the rail was first opened between Newcastle and Carlisle, that, having business among the Black Diamonds, he went down by the coach to Borough Bridge, and got on to the Newcastle mail there, and home again the same way, thus nearly doubling the distance. In fact, he was so fond of driving, that there was a county joke against him, that when in London he sent in the driver and conductor one night to have a glass, and then utterly regardless of passengers and time-keepers, drove the omnibus four miles to Hammersmith without a check. His bachelor home at Greenaways was quite a curiosity-shop, in the way of driving-whips and fox- brushes, and many was the quiet little party he used to have there in the days of the Inglewood Hunt. The hounds were then kept in kennels on the banks of Tarn Wadlin, where the pike and the cranberries flourished together, and on summer evenings we used to have drags right round the edge of the lake. The hunting field would have seemed as nothing without him and his grey ; and although his weight, which at one time was fully twenty stone, precluded his going across country, his knowledge of short cuts, and his power of knocking a padlock to pieces with the butt- end of his whip, or getting off and fairly crushing his way at one shove through a fence, with the grey wait- ing on him, combined to make him a very rare ab- sentee at the Whaw-hoop. For racing he did not care much ; but he nominated Lanercost for all his three- Turf Cracks. 183 year-old engagements, and made one of the Cumber- land quartet, which used to book the inside of the coach or mail, and go to Catterick, Newcastle, and Doncaster, to see him run that year. They held the firmest belief that he would prove to be one of the best horses the world ever saw, and that Harry Ed- wards, who was then living at Carlisle as a vet., and getting occasional mounts from Alderman Copeland, or John Scott's stable, was the only man who could get him out. And so he did at Newcastle, but The T . Lanercostiana. Hydra who was not in the same day with him at home," got so near him that Tom Daw- son was far from satisfied. He began to come very quick after that, and he was tried very high with St. Andrew before the St. Leger. Flat, thin-soled feet were always his bane. Walking up and down in front of Belle Isle he got a stone the size of a bean into one of them, which nearly lamed him, and stopped him in his work for the Liverpool Cup ; and the next year at Chester (the scene of his daring attempt as an aged horse to give the fresh four-year-old Alice Haw- thorne 5 libs.), his soles were quite festered, and he was nearly on his head at the Castle Pole. I'Anson used to say, that his feet were as good as stable-ba- rometers at last, and that he would fall lame as if he knew it was going to be hard. He was gross and sluggish to a degree, but became less so with age, and " passed his life in great eating and great work." The heavier the weight the better he liked it, as the three most celebrated Scottish geldings Zohrab, Potentate, and Olympic discovered at Eglinton Park. In fact, it seemed to make him much more lively, and Colonel Richardson always declared that " with thirteen stone he would pull walking." An incident at Dumfries proves how Outwitting St. Lord Exeter's invariable plan of having Martin. a cut at the favourite for the off chance, is far too 1 84 Scott and Sebright. often neglected. Lanercost had beaten St. Martin twice at the Caledonian Hunt, and the pair came on to Dumfries and were both entered in the Fifty Pound Plate. In his gallop, Lanercost fell lame, and I'Anson had only time to get to the boy, and tell him to slip him into Mr. Wilkins's stable close by, before any one found it out. The leg was so big, that it was quite thought that the back tendon had gone, but fomentations through the night reduced it sufficiently to let him just walk on to the course. St. Martin's party had not got wind of it, and brought their horse to the post merely to try for a compromise. Cartwright's orders on Lanercost were to walk from the post, and pull up if Sir Martin offered to make a pace. He was spared the pre- caution, as Lye turned his colt round, the moment the word was given, and left Lanercost alone in his glory. The rivalry for the Ayr Cup was then so great among the Scottish dons, that Mr. Ramsay dare not trust to The Doctor (although at 2st. he had upset a great Liverpool pot on Deception that year) when St. Bennett was to do battle for Eglinton Castle, and Lanercost was accordingly prepared for it. Labours of His four-year-old labours that Sep- Lanercost. tember and October were equal to those of a Hercules. On September 4th, he duly did the needful for St. Bennett at Ayr, tried Easingwold for :he St. Leger at Catterick, the morning after he got back to Richmond, and then walked off to Borough Bridge on his way to Doncaster. At Doncaster he won a Four-Year-Old Stake, and divided Charles XII. and Beeswing in that splendid Cup finish of two. The next week he was at the Liverpool Autumn, trying to give Melbourne a year and 4lbs. in the Palatine, and Cruiskeen a year and SQlbs, in the Heaton Park ; and running second both times. Thence he was sent back immediately to Glasgow by Turf Cracks. 185 sea, and won twice against Bellona and Malvolio at the Caledonian Hunt. From Cupar, where he arrived the night before running, he was vanned to Kelso, where Zohrab and Bellona were no use to him for the Berwickshire Gold Cup ; and then through Hawick to Dumfries, where St. Bennett and Malvolio met him separately, but to no purpose, in the latter part of that week. Mr. Ramsay thought that he had gone to run for the Cesarewitch, but I'Anson dare not risk it, and with true Scottish caution preferred the cer- tainties near home. This brings him up to October 1 8th, and as his five races had been mere exercise gallops, and he seemed to get tone every day, I'Anson determined to put his head Heath-wards for the Cam- bridgeshire on the 28th. Between Dumfries and Annan his winning the troubles began, by the breaking down Cambridgeshire. of one of the horses of his three-wheel van, which was hardly big enough for him when he was travelling night and day. For the last seventy miles he grew so weary that he stood on his toes with his heels up against the door, and propping his loin as he could. Hence when he reached Newmarket he was so para- lyzed that he " could hardly be abused into a trot," and to coax him out of a trot into a canter was quite out of Noble's power. There was nothing for it but to cover him up from nose to tail in his box, till the sweat fairly poured off him, and he was so fresh two or three days afterwards that he positively " wanted to go shopping on his road to the course, and not through the shop-door either." Still he settled down at the post, and if Mickleton Maid had not mettled him up so tremendously by the pace she made for Hetman Platoff, to whom he gave iilbs., Noble could never have driven him in a sharp finish with such a speedy customer as " Bowes's Bay." This was the maiden year of the two great stakes, nnd although some high weights and those three-year-olds have run 1 86 Scott and SebrighL close up for them since, neither of them has been won by any horse at 8st. Qlbs. Lord George might well say, " What a wonderful animal he is ! he neither sweats nor blows !" and it only proves that race- horses will generally do their best thing when they have been a little off. His After- His career after that was as variable career. as ever There was that short-head New- castle Cup victory over Beeswing, with " The Young un" so handy at the finish, that it did not speak very highly for either the Cumberland or Northumberland crack. Then he was snapped by Jem Robinson on Beggarman at Goodwood ; and then Beeswing set him a task twice over at Kelso. With the high weight and The Doctor in attendance he gave her no chance in the Cup, although Bob Johnson offered 2O/. to io/. on his mare and lost it to I'Anson : but she would have infallibly won after the dead heat, as the short preparation told in two miles, and there was nothing to help that time. Next year he was carried out twice in the Ascot Vase, first when Zeieta, and then when Miss Stilton bolted, and could never reach Satirist ; and then he won the Cup, making all his own running. After he was beaten " over the bricks" at Newcastle by Beeswing, there was an order to sell for 25 1-1 Blue Bonnet. Our Nell and Blue Bonnet, which won the Oaks and St. Leger in '42 out of Tom Dawson's stable, that neither of them had ever run in public before, and neither of them ever won again. Blue Bonnet broke down twice as a two-year-old, and was thrown up instead of going for The Ham. Dawson got her quite sound by the following August, and as with The Biddy turned loose to make running, she beat the five-year-old Charles XII. by a head at 2st, and scattered Galanthus, Moss Trooper, and Aristotle pretty widely over the High Moor, Tom 1 88 Scott and Sebright. Dawson had every right not to be much frightened of Attila "with his Goodwood race on him," on the St. Leger Day. r^ti^r Whitewall never received a thinner- LyOtnerstone. nii i i /^>i t- fleshed yearling than Cotherstone from Isaac Walker's hands, and at two years old he was always amiss. He was very fat before Doncaster, and The Era beat him in his trial. Bill Scott said he went fast and tired, and when he did not get well off in The Criterion, which was alike fatal to " Daniel" and " The West," and only ran a dead heat for the Nursery, Mr. Bowes said, "F II sell" and John Scott said, " /'// buy." No bargain was made, and after Christmas he went into work again, with All Fours, and as he was " always on the old horse's back, and he never deceived us," Bill was sent for, and so were Sim, and Nat, and Frank, and "all the swells." Cotherstone's Bill got on Cotherstone and followed the Trial. Q}^ horse, but in the bottom he felt so satisfied that he had never been on so good a colt, and that it was a sin to show him up, that he swung him a little out of the course, and left the rest, Parthian, Armitage, Greatheart, Castor and Co. to finish as they liked. Sim was the only one who was up to it, but Colonel Anson was quite sceptical, even under Bill's assurance that " / could have won to York" However, Mr. Bowes got on at good odds to win 2O,ooo/., but then came the teething troubles. The horse was sent to Newmarket for the Riddlesworth, " quite beautiful from fever," and in such pain that for a week he would only lick cold mashes, but the teeth came through just in time, and Lye lost 7OO/. on his Pompey mount. Attempt to The Two Thousand made him a hot HOCUS him. fi rs t favourite for the Derby, and the effort to get at him at Leatherhead was worthy of adaptation at the Adelphi. The man with the little bottle of stuff in his pocket who pretended to be Tiirf Cracks. 1 89 drunk, the foray of Bill (who was quite a police- sergeant on the occasion) and Markwell into a cock- loft under the pretence of wanting a bed, the squaring of the carpenter, the finding of poisoned oats in an old stocking on the top of a clock, and a packet of brown powders in the church porch, are all clearly part and parcel of a tremendous " sensation drama." However, it all ended well, and Bill declared that he could have won if necessary by fifty yards. We had not seen Cotherstone for A Visit at AI- seventeen years since the day he broke thor P Paddocks, down so heavily at Goodwood. Hence we combined the coming-in of the new Spencer hound era and the going-out of the old blood stock one, into the same day ; and when our Brixworth survey was ended, we drove off through Chapel Brampton, past Harleston Heath so dear to Payne and his Pillagers and very soon exchanged the flags for the foals. The paddocks are partly at Harleston and partly at Althorp, in the proportion of fifteen acres to eighty ; and the former were planned by Squire Andrew, after whom the sire of Cadland was named. They are delightfully roomy and comfortable, with a sort of grey antiquity about them which takes one back insensibly to the old Grafton and Bunbury days ; and if these young occupants do not quickly learn to recognise and love Mr. Wilson, in his white hat, blue blouse, and extensive beard, they must be most deeply ungrateful for his care. His aspect was a little start- ling and Republican at first ; but we found his flow of animal spirits and quaint vocabulary perfectly un- impaired under the coming parting from his brood mares. He had done a little jockeyship in his day, and it was on Helena by Rainbow from Urganda that, in 1833, he won the first race ever run over Chantilly. Isaac Walker and he were origi- nally at Bloss's together, and it is somewhat re- markable that the one should have had the nursimr Scott and Scbriht. of Cotherstone in his foalhood, and the other in his old age. Cotherstone in A noble avenue of trees leads from Retirement. Cotherstone Hall" right down to Al- thorp House, and the sweet white Wicket, which was grazing with her Storm foal in the centre of it, gave a charm to the scene, which made us doubly regret that even the inauguration of the Pytchley era should en- tail the dissolution of the Cotherstone cabinet The door of another shed bore a plate of Wryneck, which recorded in almost illegible characters how she won 300 sovereigns for his late lordship at the New- market Craven of '44. This mare was from Gitana by Tramp, and the first he ever bought. It is about nineteen years since Mr. Wilson took the head of affairs, and then Gladiator came for a season. The first Earl Spencer (the Shorthorn and Exchequer Earl) bought Cotherstone for 3000 guineas in '44, before he broke down at Goodwood ; and when he arrived in his van, his fetlocks almost touched the ground. He is " not much of a dandy now ;" but on seeing the well-known bit of blue, he came whinnying up for a recognition. As it happened, he was quietly grazing ; but he is for ever on the move for a regular set of constitutionals, which consist in walking round and round his paddocks, or on the sunny side. Well may his friend observe that " He looks as if he was matched against Mountjoy, and had nothing to do but to make haste." His jumping up is his oddest trait, and he sometimes greets Mr. Wilson by going off all four legs, just like a lamb. His Stock s blood colts and fillies have been about equal in numbers, but the first fourteen out of sixteen foals after the horse was thrown open to bond fide tenant farmers, all fell colts. True to his sire's charter, he has very seldom got a chestnut. His blood has hit well with Slane's and Priam's, and Mr. Payne had no reason to repent his Turf Cracks. 1 9 1 Althorp fancy in Glauca's and Farthingale's year. Stilton was quite his best, and if he could always have been wound up as he was for the Metropolitan, he would have fought Stockwell and Kingston hard for the supremacy of '52. He gave Evadne and Paddy- bird, both of his year, 2olbs. easily, but he never got off at Chester, and was not in the race till quite at the finish. The Chester Cup has always been an unlucky matter for Tom Dawson, as he has been second five times, and once second and third. Orlando's first race at two years old Orlando's was a Produce Stake at Ascot, in which Maj den Race, there was five to four on him, and great betting. All the seven had orders to wait, and John Day, junior, who was on Wetnurse, considered that go or wait he would be out of it. Walking down to the post, he heard Nat, who was very cautious in money matters, propose to Rogers to hedge rides, and he accordingly chimed in with, " Well, if it's a good thing for Sam, it's a good tJ ling for me ; yoiid better let me do the same" " A very likely thing" said Nat ; "your little pony has no chance" " Weul we/I!" rejoined John, " never mind, P II stay you up, though you are on such a grand one" Mr. Davis started them ; three-quarters of a mile over the Old Course, but the only response they gave to his " Go" was to stop and look at each other. " Mind, Pve started you /" he observed, and left them ; and on they walked for a hundred yards. " This is a pretty thing ! none of you seem inclined to take the lead ; shall I take it for you?" said Young John. Then Robinson struck in, " For goodness sake, John, canter or do something, or my horse will bolt." Thus encouraged, John led the phalanx, which were pulling all over the course, at a slow canter ; but when his mare got her feet on to the road for the Brick Kilns, he stuck the spurs in and stole fifty yards hi an instant. The others had to begin then, and Nat 192 Scott and Sebright. upset his horse with following her. John stopped his mare at the distance, and let Orlando reach his girths, and when he heard Nat's " CHICK ! CHICK !" he knew that the little man had begun to drive the crack. He could only sit quiet and hold his mare, and she just won a neck, tiring every stride. The Stand thought it was a false start, and when General Peel went to ask John about it, he thought it best to refer him to Jim " the schoolmaster." And well might they call him that, and agree that for patience and fairness in a race he was unrivalled. Young John One of John's most tremendous races Day's Win on was on Wiseacre, who was a terrible horse Wiseacre. to ^ and final}y fdl j ame ifl his ^^ and went to nothing. The Ham Stakes at Goodwood was a very remarkable finish, and the handling on that occasion was equal to Sam Rogers's celebrated Findon win of 1861 on Caterer. John's orders were not to be second, and he went and tried to catch them at the distance. Then he suffered, and made another effort half-way up, and crept to the girths of the leaders, without asking his colt a question. Firebrand and Barrier were beat on his right, and he just thought he might land him, and getting up inch by inch, he hit him twice and just won a head. Nat trotted back on Chatham under the firm impression that he had won, and it was in vain for Sam to try and undeceive him. " John Day won ?" he said ; "he was beat off at the distance ', and I've never seen him since " John was so weary with the job, that he could hardly sit on his saddle, and after he won the Prendergast, the sfirrup broke, and he made a second finish by going to grass. Death of Franchise was the first great winner Franchise. f or Alfred Day, and it was by the merest chance that she was trained at all. A purchaser had hjs offer of three in a straw-yard. He chose the other two, and left her, although she might have been Turf Cracks. 193 his for 2O/., and hence her owner trained her in de- spair. At last, she broke her near hindleg short off in a gallop near Sadler's Plantation ; the leg spun round in the air, nearly hitting her lad, and she was left staggering on three, till William Day gal- loped home for a pistol and shot her through the head, as soon as there was a moment's cessation in the plunging. Of the fictitious hero of "The Run- Running Rein - ning Rein year," a celebrated character and St. Law- still observes most feelingly, " What is the use of winning a Derby, if they don't let you have it ?" He was own brother, it is supposed, to one of our most celebrated runners ; and he got upset in his van on board ship, and died soon after he was taken off. Such at least is the legend of this dark offender. St. Lawrence was one of the Irish division originally, and began by running second for the Madrid Stakes. No horse was nicer to wait with, and like Sweetmeat, a jockey could put him just where he liked. He never varied a pound from his form all the time that he kept the clock at Danebury, and save and except the yellow bay Spume, on whom he won fifteen races, there was none that Young John loved better to ride. Speed was his point, and he never showed it in a higher degree than when he beat Garry-Owen, who gave him only 5lbs. over the T.Y.C. He arrived at Danebury when he was four years old, and became such " a cal- culating boy," that if he found he couldn't reach home he would stop in the last hundred yards, and he did so in the Suffolk Stakes, and again across the Flat in the Craven. The story of The Baron is somewhat The Baron on all fours with Touchstone's, but as the playbills have it, " a period of eleven years elapses." John Scott was again on the Liverpool Stand with Earl Wilton and another nobleman, when he saw the chestnut beaten. He was as fat as a bull, and had O 1 9 4 Scott and Scb rigli t. bar-shoes and fearfully festered soles, and had been made twice the savage he was by muzzles. Still " The Wizard" thought he had a St. Leger in him. And so he went to Malton, and a very rough snappish custo- mer they thought him at first. He was well physicked and then rammed along behind old All Fours, and as John Scott says, "took more work than I ever gave a horse in my life, and required more management." He was tried at Pigburn at the St. Leger distance to give As You Like It a stone, and did it with nearly a length to spare. lago, the Whitewall Leger horse of the next year, was quite as game, but he wanted speed. Still he would have outstridden the lazy Poynton at York, if Cartwright, who was riding Sheraton, had not got at the brown's girths for the honour of Mr. Meiklam and the stable, and given him three such stinging strokes on the quarters, that the horse, although one of his sinews had been cut by a hoof-hit in the race, dare not dwell any longer. Tem- pleman was hard at him at the time, little looking for such a Blucher to aid him. lago was rather short and high-legged, but for a horse of that make he stayed well. His head and back were beautiful and his temper very good, but his stock were generally very short of temper and wind as well. The B. Green B. Green's and the Grafton scarlet were Two-year-olds. j n every one's mouth in '47, and Hamble- ton began at last " To raise its head for endless spring, And everlasting blossoming," till Voltigeur's Derby knocked it out of time. The oarty of which the ex-Manchester traveller was the ostensible chief had some thirty-five in training, and won thirty-two two-year-old races. In fact, every two- year-old they brought to the post that year contrived to rub off his maidenhood. At Chester in '49, they Turf Cracks. 195 won ten races, the Cup among the number, with the eccentric Malton, who would not go into a stable, unless the door was a very wide one, and would then canter right in. Sometimes they could manage him blindfolded, but to make matters all right at Chester, they hired a coach-house. Teddy Edwards and Win- teringham did the riding part for the stable, and Basham, who first rode as a feather at Stockton-on- Tees in '45, on sister to Andover's dam, had a few light-weight mounts. The Confederacy gave 5OO/. for Assault, Two-year-old the same for Chaff and Flatcatcher, 35