3i8 'PROMISED LAND' AND ' DULCIBELLA ' 



had won, and by the actual result of the race I lost 100. 

 Another grand theory was that I had ridden him to 

 death, and taken too wide a sweep at the turn ; whilst 

 others declared I had not made use enough of him in 

 the early part of the race. I had to, and did, reduce 

 myself very much to get to the weight ; and lots of 

 people thought I was too weak to assist the horse, or 

 scarcely even to sit on him, arid that nothing but that 

 beat him. 



I have already had to relate how a stranger on one 

 occasion took upon himself to explain to the company in 

 a railway carriage how a certain jockey who happened 

 to be one of those present, but of course unknown to him 

 had fallen, or nearly fallen, off his horse in the principal 

 race of the day at the meeting from which the party was 

 returning ; and how he had neatly turned the matter off 

 by saying he had not seen that race himself, but had 

 only heard of the incident from someone else, and that 

 'it showed how recklessly people will talk.' I had a 

 very similar experience myself on this occasion . A few 

 days after the race, I was standing on the platform at 

 the Basingstoke Station, by the side of the late Mr. 

 Henry Figes, when a gentlemanly-looking man came up 

 to him and said : 



' Well, I suppose you saw the Derby ?' 



1 Yes,' was the reply. 



' The jockey who rode Promised Land,' continued the 

 other, ' lost the race. He could not sit on his horse, 

 poor fellow, from wasting so hard. He had to be carried 

 from off his horse into the weighing-room to the 

 scales.' 



On being told that I was the .attenuated horseman in 

 question, he too, in his turn, was ready with his excuse. 

 For in this case again he said ' he had only heard so, 



