248 CHASING AND RACING 



The race was a mile, but my joker had no pretensions 

 to stay the distance ; he nevertheless held on for seven 

 furlongs before giving Arthur's mount best, and was 

 well in front of the rest of the field at the finish. 



A day later I slammed the same rider (when vainly 

 endeavouring to induce Tom's champion Blanc to 

 show a shadow of the form he had displayed in a home 

 trial) with my Dornroschen, as described elsewhere ; 

 and on the last day's racing I had my revenge on the 

 Cannon contingent in a six-furlong race, which was 

 eminently to Blankney's liking. Incidentally I may 

 mention that this was a selling race, and I was fearful 

 that I should have to soar into high finance, in order 

 to retain the dear old chap ; but as luck would have it, 

 he had twisted a plate in pulling up, with the result 

 that he limped around the sale ring like a lame duck, 

 so no one would bid. 



I have already described the tight finish between 

 Arthur Coventry, Geo. Baird (Abingdon), and myself 

 at Derby. I was indeed fortunate to be on the better 

 gee three times out of the four that I encountered the 

 first named. 



If I was lucky as regards the two named, and Sir 

 James Duke, there were others who were veritable 

 hoodoos to me. Not once did I succeed in pegging 

 back Tommy Lushington ; though on one occasion I 

 got to the head of his mount on the post, when riding 

 the worst rogue that it was ever my ill-fortune to 

 bestride. This was Roscidus, alluded to earlier in 



