62 The Pride of Our Village. 



Then came the babel of voices. " Favourite won ! " " No 

 Italian ! " '' No, clead-heat ! " The fact was, as I learnt 

 afterwards, that neither jockey knew which horse had won. 

 I waited quietly for the verdict, when — oh ! horror — a 

 stoutish elderly man in a red coat (the old clerk of the 

 course), mounted on a very powerful chestnut horse with four 

 white stockings, trotted into the space in front of the rub- 

 bing-house, and led out Italian first, followed by our 

 favourite, who was beaten on the post by a very short half 

 head. And then — I am not the least ashamed to say so — I 

 sat down and cried like a child. 



The judge, of course, incurred much odium, because he 

 made a mistake about the number of the third horse, which 

 had afterwards to be reversed, but I have no doubt that 

 he was right, as Mr. F. Verrall, whose obituary was 

 published a short time since, and whom I knew very 

 well, and who backed the favourite, was standing outside 

 the judge's box and could see the race as well as the judge; 

 and he told me that he fancied that the favourite's shoulder 

 and the jockey were first, but the favourite's head was down, 

 and Italian threw up his head in his last stride, and Mr. 

 Yerrall agreed with the judge about the half head, and 

 said that had he been judge he would have given the same 

 decision. 



As to what followed after, is it not written in the annals 

 of racing how our favourite was nearly beaten by a second- 

 rate French horse on the Friday following the Derby, and 

 got into bad odour, and was peppered tremendously by the 

 Ring for months? How the greatest bookmaker laid 

 £11,000 to £1,000 against him in one bet with the owner, 

 and paid the bet the night of the Leger ? How the horse 

 went to Doncaster, and with a start of a hundred yards 

 behind the other horses at the post he won the Lege? 

 easily ? How our villagers and those of the neighbouring 



