294 The Post and the Paddock. 



horse such a cropper, by declaring that he " thought 

 it was a bruk" Will is enthusiastic and brilliant, 

 both in the field and kennel. Fox-hunting his- 

 torians in the 2OOOth century will have rare stories 

 to tell of him. We heard of him leaving his weaned 

 horse in a ditch, casting his hounds in the middle 

 of the next field, and then going back to get 

 him out ; and he twice killed his fox on foot within 

 three months, running on one occasion more than 

 three-quarters of a mile. In the days of his cropped 

 horse by Negotiator, his genius was put to no such 

 straits. 



For the comedy of errors in crossing a country, 

 amateur steeple-chasers are worth watching. None 

 of them have the noted Bill Wright's fine knowledge 

 of the art of being " brought to the post just right" 

 They are either under or over-done. Now, in Mr. 

 W.'s sense of the word, "just right" meant "three 

 parts of a bottle of port wine, two glasses of brandy- 

 and-water, and a pipe." When he was fairly " in con- 

 dition!' he spurned the idea of reconnoitring the 



ground. " the ground," said he; "looking at 



another glass of brandy-and-water, will do me more 

 good than that." We saw one of them so des- 

 perately flurried at taking the lead and winning, 

 that he stuck to it, when he went to scale, that there 

 had been no brook in the race, although he had 

 cleared it in fine style with both stirrups flying. 

 Another, too, who, by-the-bye, was a coroner, of all 

 people, after giving his antagonist such a cannon at a 

 fence, that the two came down together, sailed past 

 us over a couple of fields, and then found out that he 

 was on a bay horse instead of the brown mare on which 

 he started. The strongest piece of horsemanship we 

 remember, was James Mason, that Emperor of steeple- 

 chase riders past and present, recovering Lansquinet 

 when he made a mistake in a Hippodrome steeple- 

 chase ; and Earl Fitzhardinge will bear us out that 



