SOME LIVERPOOLS, INCLUDING KIRKLAND'S 



tion for the stiff jumps at Aintree. This has constituted 

 an annual puzzle for trainers. A certain amount of 

 public schooling is no doubt an excellent thing, but there 

 are few meetings at which this schooling may not have a 

 tendency to teach Liverpool horses the mischievous trick 

 of chancing their fences. Comfit, however, having won 

 his race as aforesaid, came out at Kempton Park early in 

 February for the ^6500 Coventry Handicap Steeple 

 Chase, in which he encountered that remarkable animal 

 John M.P. Something about Mr. J. S. Morrison's 

 horse may here be interpolated. The son of Britannic 

 and Guiding Star had proved himself useful over fences 

 and hurdles as a five-year-old. He had, indeed, run 

 second for the valuable Lancashire Handicap Steeple- 

 chase, beaten a neck by Lord James to whom he was 

 giving a stone. Subsequently to that he ran in a hurdle 

 race at Sandown, but from the 23rd April, 1904, to the 

 5th January, 1906, he was an absentee. When he came 

 out for the Eton Handicap Hurdle Race at Windsor on 

 the latter date no idea was generally entertained that he 

 could have a chance. Odds of 100 to i were actually 

 on offer against him ; and he comfortably beat an even 

 money favourite, Sir Samuel Scott's Series, by a couple 

 of lengths. During his withdrawal Sir Charles Nugent 

 had performed intricate operations on the horse — I 

 forget for how long Sir Charles has told me he kept the 

 patient under chloroform. 



But it appeared that John M.P. was better than ever, 



73 



