AND TIMES OF JOHN OSBORNE 41 



his father, and ridden in a rough up gallop across the 

 undulations of famed old Middleham Moor. At all 

 events, so much was thought of him as a rider at the 

 age of thirteen years that little " Johnnie " was entrusted 

 with his first mount in public in 1846 on Miss Castling, 

 an Inheritor mare. The race was the Wilton Cup at 

 Radcliffe Bridge, near Bury, in Lancashire. It was 

 not an auspicious first essay, as Miss Castling broke 

 down in the contest, which was a handicap, two miles, 

 with 100 sovs. added — an important stake in those days. 

 Mr. Baker had taken the meeting in hand and raised 

 it that year from the " flapping " or illegitimate order, 

 to a more dignified status, by increasing the stakes and 

 by improving the course, which had a very awkward 

 turn in it before he made a change. Miss Castling, a 

 thoroughly game little mare, was afterwards patched 

 up, and " Johnnie " rode her the following year in the 

 Liverpool Cup, carrying 5 st. 7 lbs. 



The embyro jockey had been brought from school 

 to make this, his first essay in the pigskin. He was 

 educated at Brampton-on-Swale, near Catterick, where 

 he lived with his grandfather until he was nearly eleven 

 years of age, afterwards returning to Ashgill and start- 

 ing at once in the stables. A strict disciplinarian and a 

 toiler himself, the father did not allow of his family 

 eating the bread of idleness ; the mother, too, found her 

 hands full with increasing ties, and worked as hard as 

 any member of her family. The tale is told of the good 

 dame arming herself with the stable besom and driving 

 the indifferent stable hands to the venerable church 

 in the valley below on Sundays. The calls of religion 

 were evidently not ignored in the old Yorkshire home, 

 and the mother's influence, no doubt, has had a 



