1 82 RACING. 



After this trial John Day, who trained Lecturer, Ackworth, 

 and Gomera, and who had already tried the two former 

 together, tried Gomera and Ackworth, and, by Lord Hastings' 

 desire, informed the Littleton party that Lecturer had 7 Ibs. in 

 hand of Proserpine. It is to this act of courtesy that we 

 presume Mr. Swindells' biographers allude, when they describe 

 him as saying on this occasion that ' Old John had him like 

 a rat in a trap.' 



In order to make assurance doubly sure, the Daneburyites 

 then entered Ackworth and Gomera in the Cesarewitch Trial 

 Handicap. In those days the overnight handicaps were 

 supposed to be made by the Stewards of the Jockey Club, 

 though in reality the Admiral seldom if ever brooked any 

 interference. On this occasion, however, he very reluctantly 

 gave way to Mr. Craven, one of his colleagues, who was 

 acquainted with the trials, and who told the Admiral that he 

 was 10 Ibs. wrong in his estimate of the relative merits of 

 Ackworth and Gomera. 



' Will you take the responsibility if you alter my handicap ? ' 

 said the Admiral. 'Most assuredly I will,' was the reply, and 

 Gomera was put down 10 Ibs., the Admiral according to his 

 wont vowing and declaring that he would eat his hat if any- 

 thing beat her. Fordham rode Ackworth, and Cameron, who 

 had ridden her in the trial, was on Gomera. Pintail, a five- 

 year-old mare belonging to Mr. George Payne, won by three 

 lengths, 1 and there was a head only between the two Danebury 



1 It was notorious that Mr. Payne's horses were always ' beaten a hundred 

 measured yards in the trial.' Pintail, however, may have scrambled within 

 the traditional distance, for she appears to have started first favourite at 5 

 to 2. He was continually chaffed on the subject of these home failures, being 

 asked when he was going to bring out this wonderful old trial horse that could 

 make everything lie down, &c. As will readily be believed, Mr. Payne could 

 always rather more than hold his own in an encounter of wits, and his assailants 

 usually had the worst of it. Once only do we remember his acknowledging a 

 defeat of the mysterious and perennial schoolmaster. ' Cantiniere made him 

 look silly I can tell you,' was all he said. A volume might be filled with the 

 quaint sayings of this extraordinary man, but, after all, they only sound stupid 

 on paper. It was the twinkle in his eye, combined with the otherwise imper- 

 turbable set of his facial muscles, that, while he was enunciating the most 



