ULTIMATE FAILURE 215 



laurels, but fortune brought but disappointment, from 

 the effects of which they never fairly recovered. 



Such a string of horses as they had might, if properly 

 managed, have been a fortune to any but themselves. 

 But, if they had the luck to get the horses together, they 

 did not understand how to make the best of them ; and, 

 from a variety of circumstances, either in the training or 

 the misplacing of their horses, or both, their career came 

 to a short and inglorious conclusion through lack of 

 funds. There could scarcely have been found elsewhere 

 three persons together so unfitted for the several parts 

 they had to take in the purchase and management of a 

 racing stud. How limited was their knowledge may be 

 gathered from what I have related of their previous 

 histories. Besides, their build, in its bulkiness, was 

 against them. They lacked the activity and energy that 

 alone give success to judgment and well-matured plans. 

 Mri Green took little interest in the management of the 

 horses, and rarely, if ever, saw them tried. He pre- 

 ferred the comforts of his own fireside, and the solace of 

 a well-replenished snuff-box, to leaving his bed at four 

 o'clock in the morning to see what, he freely confessed, 

 he did not understand and had no taste for. After the 

 death of the other two, Henry Stebbing trained for 

 Mr. Osbaldeston and others with better success, for even 

 in his case I must suppose long experience made him 



We have a similar case in the partnership between 

 Messrs. Barber and Saxon, although it lasted longer, 

 and was on a larger scale. Where these gentlemen 

 sprang from I have been unable to discover, although it 

 was said, when they first came into notice, that they 

 hailed from the ' black country,' where it is probable 

 they worked in the mines. They were gamblers at 



