Vlll PREFACE 



make extracts from that distinguished writer's works, 

 the author has to tender grateful thanks to Mr. Tresham 

 Gilbey, whose re-issue of " The Druid " series, pubHshed 

 by Messrs. Vinton & Co., London, must be considered 

 a boon to sportsmen and the general reading public. 

 In other quarters where it was thought necessary, in 

 accord with the exigencies of the compiler or the auto- 

 biographer to make extracts, the source is invariably 

 acknowledged. 



Even yet, in this closing year of the nineteenth 

 century, and with the hghtly-borne burden of sixty- 

 eight years on his shoulders, John Osborne is far from 

 being an extinct celebrity. Active, vigorous, and ever 

 industrious, he yet superintends the training of some 

 thirty thoroughbreds at Brecongill. If exception be 

 made of Campanajo and Laughing Girl (both bred by 

 himself), and Mr. Vyner's King Crow, whose career of 

 high promise was stopped by his breakdown in the 

 Cesarewitch, no animal of high class has been sent forth 

 from Brecongill since " Master John " made his " long 

 farewell " as a professional horseman on Baron Hirsch's 

 Watercress, who was third to his stable companion, La 

 rieche, in the St. Leger of 1892. That mount com- 

 pleted his public riding career, which began at Radcliffe 

 Bridge in 1846. Yet after that long lapse of years, the 

 veteran follows daily his occupation as a trainer, 

 plodding on hopefully, patiently from the earliest hours 

 of the morning till the evening brings his labours to a 

 close. His passion for riding is as strong as ever. 

 Though on the threshold of being a septuagenarian, he 



