The Life of a Great Sportsman 



We also superintended the clipping of the hedges, and the 

 length of the course, in which we were greatly assisted by 

 our great-uncle Mr. William Marris, another of our grand- 

 mother's brothers, and one of our trustees! His opinion we 

 treated with great respect, as having ridden in several steeple- 

 chases himself, we considered him competent to advise — actually 

 to advise us — just think of it ! Then came the final decision as 

 to who should ride this or that horse or pony in the race ? 

 Who, in fact, were to be the competitors ? 



Finally it was arranged that the field was to consist of four 

 runners. My two brothers ; our great friend George Nelson ; 

 and our second cousin George Marris (our uncle William's 

 eldest son) ; owners up ; catch weights. 



My brother Willie was to ride his thoroughbred bay cob, 

 14.2, a handsome, high-spirited little animal, and a perfect 

 fencer. Maunsell's mount was my 14 hands dark chestnut 

 pony Tommy, a nice thoroughbred, with a touch of the Arab 

 in him, never beaten on the flat in our impromptu races, and 

 a remarkably fine fencer. George Nelson was to ride his own 

 brown horse, 15*2, and George Marris his grey mare, also 15*2. 

 Both these last-named riders and horses were in every way 

 superior in age, size and weight to my brothers or their 

 mounts, but as catch weights had been ordained it did not 

 matter much. George Nelson was eighteen years old, and a 

 good weight for his age, and George Marris was seventeen, 

 and also scaled a fairly proportionate amount for his age and 

 size, but my brothers, respectively ten and eleven years old, 

 carried no superficial amount of flesh, and so it was justly 

 supposed that the conditions of the race would bring the horses 

 together. Catch weights, of course, meant in this case that the 

 jockeys, being owners of their respective horses, were neither 

 to increase nor diminish their weights by a single ounce. 



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