SOME LIVERPOOLS, INCLUDING KIRKLAND'S 



always greatly pleased the old sporting Baronet to have 

 a mount in races in which his sons rode. At Liverpool 

 Drumcree was a slightly better favourite than Detail, 

 the two having every possible advantage of jockeyship, 

 as Percy Woodland and Arthur Nightingall were on 

 their backs respectively. The odds were 13 to 2 and 

 100 to 14, whilst 10 to I was to be had about Pride of 

 Mabestown, Aunt May and Matthew, 100 to 8 against 

 Kirkland, 100 to 6 against King Edward's Ambush II., 

 Fanciful and Inquisitor. 



I was about to say in almost every race of any 

 importance one hears after the event of some horse who 

 " ought to have won." Perhaps I may be slightly 

 exaggerating when I say " in almost every race," but 

 really I am not sure whether the remark is not justified ; 

 at any rate it is safe to say in a very large proportion of 

 races this is the case. Mr. G. W. Lushington, known 

 to his friends as " Tommy," who trained King Edward's 

 steeplechase horses in Ireland and had sold Ambush II. 

 to His Majesty, maintained to the end of his life that 

 the winner of 1900 ought to have repeated his victory 

 three years later. When in the year 191 1 I was com- 

 piling a work entitled "King Edward VII. as a Sports- 

 man," Tommy Lushington gave me his generous 

 assistance, which was, of course, invaluable, as he was 

 the one person who knew all about King Edward's 

 jumpers. 



His contention was that Ambush II. had prac- 



53 



