32 CHASING AND RACING 



The third act was again laid at Portsmouth, and 

 again The Usher, directly and indirectly, involved 

 me in trouble. He was top weight in a handicap, 

 which was the principal event of the day ; but by this 

 time I was training my own bloodstock with Ted 

 Jaquet as manager and one, Bill Davies, a hot-headed 

 Welshman as head lad. The Usher was on his 

 worst behaviour, and kept breaking away until my 

 arms and wrists were numbed. At last we were off, 

 but his weight and the capers the little brute had been 

 cutting at the post had taken as much steel out of him 

 as they had out of his rider ; consequently, by the time 

 we had covered five furlongs (it was a mile race) he 

 was stone cold, and finally was cantering in with the 

 crowd, when an inebriated marine gave him a cut on 

 the quarters with his cane ; whereupon The Usher, 

 having recovered his wind, caught hold of his bit 

 and bolted for the paddock. I was quite powerless 

 to hold him ! Three times he raced round the 

 enclosure and then dashed on to the lawn, in front 

 of the grand stand. On reaching the iron rails 

 dividing the lawn from the course, he stuck his toes 

 in suddenly, and I was deposited on the top of bookie 

 Treherne, conspicuous by his luxuriant face fungus, 

 otherwise beard. The worthy penciller broke my 

 fall without suffering much damage, so I escaped 

 unscathed, but a bit shaken. 



I had entered in the last race of the day, a roan 

 three-year-old colt named Epsom Embrocation, his 



