8 INTRODUCTION 



patched gap in a high posts and rails close to a gate through 

 which we were about to pass. After the usual friendly 

 salutations, my wife asked him in a tone of concern : " What's 

 the matter? " " Just look at that! " said he. " They break 

 down my fences and say nothing. It's positively sinful ! " 

 " I remember well when these posts and rails got broken," 

 replied my wife. " Miss Tennant raced at the stiff timber 

 at the side of the gate through which the rest of us were 

 passing. Her horse struck the fence, turned over, and she 

 got a terrible fall and broke her collar-bone. I was awfully 

 sorry." " Ah! Mrs. Hayes," joined in our friend sympatheti- 

 cally, "you have a kind heart for farmers, and you would be 

 still more sorry if you only knew how much it cost me to get 

 that gap repaired." 



I had an old friend in Captain Williams (Fig. i), late of 

 the 8th Hussars. When we were stationed at Meerut 

 together twenty years ago, he owned that staunch old 

 chaser Hector, against whom I ran, with varying success, 

 a horse I was training called Substitute. At that time 

 Captain Williams was a bold and cool-headed steeplechase 

 rider, but in Leicestershire he did not try to set the pace ; 

 although, when required, he was always ready to negotiate 

 a big fence if mounted on his skewbald Joseph, who was a 

 beautifully shaped hunter, and as clever as a cat, though 

 musical. I often saw Custance out : generally with the 

 Cottesmore, as he lived at Oakham. He was certainly one 

 of the finest jockeys we ever had in England, and the 

 men against whom he rode, George Fordham, Johnnie 

 Osborne, and Tom Cannon for instance, w T ere uncommonly 

 bad to beat. When he had that fine chaser and extra- 

 ordinary clever hunter, the Doctor, he was as good over 

 Leicestershire as he had been on the flat ; and more 

 can't be said. 



Lord Lonsdale almost always rode chestnut horses, the 



