k 'STARTER' AT GOODWOOD 203 



of the Goodwood Stakes in Starter's year, in spite of his 

 assurance ' Not a jot, not a jot,' when to his surprise my 

 horse won. He had backed him, although he had the 

 first favourite in Cecil, which he had backed for a large 

 stake too ; for his Epsom trainer had told him that he 

 was as sure to win as Starter was to get beat. 



' In all his life,' he declared, speaking of the latter 

 horse, ' he had never seen such a poor brute ; and,' he 

 added, ' if he wins I'll eat him !' reminding one of poor 

 Feist, when he declared in print that he would perform 

 the same feat if Casse-TSte won the Grand National at 

 Liverpool. In both cases the horses did win, and the 

 words, not the animals, were eaten. In the instance at 

 Goodwood, the utterance of these idiotic words shook to 

 the foundation the small faith that Swindell had in his 

 little trainer's judgment as to the condition of his own or 

 anyone else's horses. 



One of his marked peculiarities was the fondness he 

 had for the opinion of ' touts.' Many of these gentry 

 would call upon him daily, or rather nightly ; and though 

 in the midst of dinner, he would leave it to learn what 

 they had to say, with as much alacrity as he would to 

 attend to a lord or a duke. After hearing what one man 

 might have to tell him, he would return to the table, 

 only to be disturbed by two or three more on the same 

 errand before he had finished the meal. On these occa- 

 sions he would expect to be told of some extraordinary 

 trial that had come off, or was about to take place ; the 

 knocking out of the favourite, or the introduction of a 

 new one. To all he listened eagerly; though I don't 

 presume to say he often or ever acted on information 

 received from such sources. He was far too clever for 

 that. But, as he used to say, whilst cracking his sides 

 with laughter, ' he liked to hear what the vagabonds 



