256 REMINISCENCES OF SONEPORE. 



Race on Dart. It was at the end of this year, just before the 

 Delhi Assemblage, that Bertie persuaded Mr. Geneste to buy 

 from Dignum, a grey hurdle racer called Wamambool, 

 changed his name to Hurricane and started schooling 

 the horse for chasing and went to the Delhi Assem- 

 blage confident of winning the Great Eastern Steeple- 

 chase, but on arrival there he found the C. T. C. had dis- 

 qualified him from riding on account of his having failed 

 to attend a meeting at which they wanted him to explain 

 his having dismounted before passing the post in the 

 Selling Race at Nusseerabad ; so he had to stand down and 

 put Major Humphrey up, the good grey gelding got home 

 twenty lengths in front of Sweep with Mr. Bob Crowdy in 

 the saddle eight started. At Lucknow 1877 Bertie was once 

 more in the saddle, winning a very brilliantly ridden race on 

 Nancy Lee, a rank outsider, beating Tingey on the favourite 

 Tom, by a head in the Pony Race. At Dehra in October 

 he won a good race in the Pony Chase, riding Mr. Skinner's 

 Sultana, beating Lord William Beresford on the heavily 

 backed Banker. Mr. Skinner won over five thousand by this 

 race, but though he knew Bertie had not two farthings to rub 

 together, he never put him on for a penny. On Wicked at 

 the Dehra meeting of 1880 Bertie came to awful grief in the 

 Grand Annual, at the on and off, when leading the field the 

 horse swerved, Bertie set him at it again, but Wicked breasted 

 the bank, turned right over and broke his back seeming to have 

 fallen on and crushed his rider, Bertie soon came round and 

 beyond a shaking was but little the worse he rode 

 Gameboy next racing day in the Handicap Chase second 

 to Lord William on Goulbourn. At Lahore in November 

 he rode a great race on Nimblefoot in the Grand Lahore 

 Steeplechase, beating Dewing on Kate Coventry by a 

 dozen lengths ; and this was his last appearance at North- 

 West Meetings, for shortly afterwards he left Dehra and 



