FAMOUS CHASERS AND THEIR RIDERS. 371 



be ridden, and also how to ride him two different things, though 

 they lead to the same result, the winning of races. Mr. Wilson 

 has remarkable strength in the saddle, and what is equally to 

 the purpose, understands precisely how the strength may best 

 be utilised. 



There are naturally a number of excellent horsemen who, 

 perhaps from sheer bad luck, have failed to win a Grand 

 National. Of prominent amateurs Mr. Arthur Yates may be 

 named. Nearly every other great race fell to his lot in his time, 

 but the blue riband of cross-country sport was denied him. 

 Mr. Yates was in his best day remarkably strong in the saddle, 

 courageous and determined. A horse might be trusted to run 

 up to his form when Mr. Yates was riding, and he never lost his 

 head. One race ridden by this fine horseman will be long re- 

 membered. The scene was Croydon, and the animal, Harold 

 by name, came down heavily at the brook. The horse was up 

 first, but not by much. Mr. Yates ran after him, caught him 

 by the tail before he could set off, hung on, covering some 

 distance of ground in this eccentric fashion, and finally suc- 

 ceeding in getting into the saddle again, won the race. Extreme 

 familiarity with the animal in the stable, on its training-ground 

 during and after schooling, as well as on the racecourse, went 

 far to explain Mr. Yates' exceptional success as a rider. 



Captain Arthur Smith has ridden much, and, a bold horse- 

 man from the first, has retained his nerve in a way rarely 

 seen. Twenty years ago, in 1864, he won the Grand National 

 Hunt Steeple-chase on Game Chicken, in a field of twenty- 

 eight runners. There is no better man to hounds. A good 

 many years since it is recorded of Captain Smith that he jumped 

 a fence into a gravel-pit, five-and-twenty feet deep, and a terror- 

 stricken farmer, who knew the country, rode up to the spot in 

 horrified apprehension. When he arrived he found the man, 

 whose shattered body he had expected to see at the bottom, 

 quietly making his way up the slope out of the pit. ' Well, sir, 

 you were not born to be killed out hunting ! ' was the only 

 remark the farmer could make. 



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