338 The Post and the Paddock. 



not he. I loved nothing like horses. When I was 

 only six or seven, I used to go out on my pony, bare- 

 back, and jump everything right and left, just like 

 other people. My word ! I could set a good many of 

 them then ! I'll tell you a story about a bull a re- 

 gular good'un. Ecod, how you make me laugh ! I 

 wish I was twenty years younger. It would be about 

 a year and a half before I left Cottesmore there was 

 a holiday-making, and this ere bull was in a field. 

 Some one said " You daren't ride him, Dick ;" so up 

 I gets off he goes, right away to Cottesmore, and 

 the whole fair after me ! You know the brook there ? 

 Well, he was so beat that he downs his head when 

 he gets to it, and slithers me right off. Flat on my 

 back I comes : on him again, and blame me if I 

 didn't ride him whiles he was so blown he could 

 run no longer ! It's truth, every word I'm telling 

 you. There was quite a hunt after the bull, and the 

 farmer laughed and said nothing : he know'd me, 

 you see, already, and my riding tricks I was a 

 queer un. 



I would be somewhere about twelve and a half 

 when I went to Sir Horace Mann's racing stables : 

 they were at Barham Downs in Kent, but he had 

 only two or three horses. I rode my first race in a 

 blue jacket, on Barham Downs I think I was second. 

 There wasn't more than four and a half stone of me 

 then. I rode the same mare at Margate, and had a 

 bad accident there : a chaise crossed the course, and 

 nearly broke my knee. That was a two or three 

 year job. I was so lame I went home again, and 

 father sent me to school for a bit. When I got better, 

 I took a mare of Major Chiseldine's, of Somerby, 

 on the Burrow Hills, down to Timms the trainer, 

 at Nottingham. We galloped them on old Sher- 

 wood Forest, and took them to water at the Beeston 

 Water-mill the spot's all covered with factories 

 now. Home again I comes to Cottesmore, and then 



