RACING AND BILLIARDS 



on the rails in England was a dark-haired, good-looking 

 young man. The Bamards and Alf Joseph — ^the 

 latter then Mayor of Sandhurst (Bendigo) — also visited 

 the meeting. Alf Joseph had a good reception in 

 England when, years ago, he came over on a visit. 



The way they all hustled to lay us doubles and 

 trebles at the Ship was an education. They would 

 soon find out whether a man's credit was all right, and 

 the settling took place at the close of the meeting, and 

 nearly everyone paid. At this meeting for the Hobart 

 Cup I had a great fancy for a horse named Stockwell 

 by St Albans, an imported sire, by Blair Athol. I 

 had seen this Stockwell running at a small meeting, 

 and had taken a violent fancy to him, thinking him a 

 horse and a half. He was a beautiful chestnut and a 

 three-year-old at the time ; I backed him straight out 

 and in doubles. Joe Thompson on the first evening I 

 met him asked me whether there was anything likely 

 among the local horses to win the Hobart Cup and 

 I told him what I thought about this Stockwell ; 

 he told me that he had heard about him too. Early 

 judgment over that colt has frequently been repeated 

 about others since, not exactly an intuition, but that 

 combined with sound appreciation. Later in the 

 evening Joe said to me : " The name of that horse is 

 Stockwell, isn't it ? " He seemed peculiarly interested. 

 He was in with a nice light-weight and it seemed a real 

 good thing for him, but the boy on him couldn't extend 

 him, and he was just pipped on the post by a mare 

 called the Marchioness. By the way, the owner of 

 this one called nearly all his horses after characters 

 from Dickens. I had " counted my chickens " with 

 regard to Stockwell, and it was a bitter blow, but, 

 fortunately, I had taken a bet about the winner, so 

 things were not so bad, but that wretched riding was 



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