CHASING AND RACING 169 



A few weeks later found us arrayed for battle on 

 the excellent Kempton track. I expected Bill to go 

 hell for leather, so as to exploit St. Bede's staying 

 powers, and to find the weak spot in my ruffian. I 

 was not mistaken ! We had hardly started when the 

 catgut began to fall with resounding cracks on the 

 unfortunate St. Bede's flanks. That Roscidus had the 

 speed of him was obvious. We lay at his girths and 

 remained there until half-way up the straight ; the 

 fusilade of flagellation being religiously kept up by 

 Bill all the way. As " Ma " Yates said to me after- 

 wards : " When I saw you sitting quiet as a mouse and 

 Bill hard at work on ours, I thought it was ' all up 

 with us.' ' Well, I had thought the same, but when 

 I asked the beast " Roscidus " to win his race, he not 

 only refused to pass St. Bede, but edged over, in crab- 

 like fashion, to the stand side of the course, and again 

 Bill's mount scored. 



I happened to meet George Barrett in the paddock 

 later. " If I were you, Captain," he said, " I should 

 take that brute Roscidus home and serve him up to 

 your hounds. It's all he's good for. We've all had 

 a go on him, and not one of us has ever got him first 

 past the post, even when it seemed a hundred to one on 

 him in running ! " 



A well-known and much respected dog-breaker 

 once said to me: " When I have a real bad 'un to deal 

 with, I take a gun to him and forget he ever existed ! " 



This advice might have been followed with 



