THE TURF. 
learn it somewhere. I will venture to give you a trial, 
but I must first inquire your character of my good 
friends Woodcock and Johnstone. Come to-morrow 
morning at nine, and you shall have an answer.' It 
may well be supposed I did not forget the appointment, 
and a fortunate one I found it, for I was accepted on 
trial, at four pounds or guineas a year, with the usual 
livery clothing." 
It was in the service of John Watson that Holcroft 
became a horseman, and the exercise of his skill, in his 
contest with a certain strapping dun horse, is very 
amusingly told : 
" It was John Watson's general practice to exercise 
his horses over the flat, and up Cow-bridge hill ; but 
the rule was not invariable. One wintry day he ordered 
us up to the Bury hills. It mizzled a very sharp sleet ; 
the wind became uncommonly cutting, and Dun, being 
remarkable for a tender skin, found the wind and sleet, 
which blew directly up his nostrils, so very painful, that 
it suddenly made him outrageous. He started from the 
rank in which he was walking, tried to unseat me, 
endeavoured to set off at full speed, and when he found 
he could not master me so as to get head, began to rear, 
snorting most violently, threw out behind, plunged, and 
used every mischievous exertion of which the muscular 
powers of a blood-horse are capable. I who felt the 
uneasiness he suffered before his violence began, being 
luckily prepared, sat firm and as steady and upright as 
if this had been his usual exercise. John Watson was 
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