FAMOUS CHASERS AND THEIR RIDERS. 351 



It is said of Jem Mason and Lottery that ' they understood 

 each other,' and this seems highly probable. The son of a 

 horse-dealer, Mason was when a lad engaged by a then well- 

 known dealer and jobber of hacks and hunters, Mr. Tilbury 

 of Pinner, who had sometimes a couple of hundred hunters 

 belonging to him, and on these the youthful Jem had abundant 

 practice, which he turned to the best account. Lord Frederick 

 Beauclerc noticed him one day when they were hunting in 

 Hertfordshire. 'That boy picks his way better than any of 

 them ! ' he observed to a friend, as they watched Mason riding 

 to hounds. So pleased was he with the lad's skill that he gave 

 him the mount on a horse called The Poet, which had run third 

 in the St. Leger, in the St. Albans steeple-chase, and, though 

 the animal was a tremendous puller and very difficult to ride, 

 Mason won. 



After this he rode constantly, and with altogether extra- 

 ordinary success. An anecdote of a steeple-chase at Stratford- 

 on-Avon shows how little he thought of a stiff jump with his 

 favourite under him. There was in the course of the chase a 

 new unbreakable gate, fully 5 ft. 6 in. in height, it being supposed 

 that the competitors would charge a penetrable bullfinch which 

 spread on either side of the posts. Mason, however, went at 

 the gate, and cleared it as if it had been a hurdle. His explana- 

 tion was that ' he intended to go to the opera that night, and 

 did not want to scratch his face.' 



Another of Mason's exploits required courage in no ordinary 

 degree. While riding Gaylad, the Liverpool winner of 1842, 

 some time after that victory, the stirrup-iron slipped over his 

 heel up his leg, when more than two miles from home. Mason 

 went on as if his gear had been in the most admirable order. 

 Critics of horsemanship who were his contemporaries in his 

 best day commend him for his seat, hands, decision, and 

 judgment ; but it is said it was in putting his horse at a fence 

 that he chiefly excelled, for he always went at the right place in 

 the right stride. 



As for Lottery, another extract from ' The Druid ' graphic- 



