AND TIMES OF JOHN OSBORNE 77 



had some good racing ponies, and John Jackson 

 used to ride them in the matches. They had a 

 ratth:ng good little pony by Billy out of Tunstall 

 Maid named 'Little Wonder.' Old Jackson 

 ran these ponies at the feasts all about the 

 countryside, and he challenged the world for 

 ponies under fourteen hands. John Jackson was 

 a real good man to hounds; a good-hearted, 

 thorough good fellow altogether. My father 

 trained several horses for him, and sold 

 Saunterer to him as a two-vear-old ; also 

 Eemedy, who was very sharp over half a 

 mile; and Lord Alfred was sold to him 

 in the autumn of 1855, out of the Ashgill 

 lot. 



" It was on Manganese I won my first 

 classic race in 1856, then being in my nineteenth 

 year. She came to Ashgill as a yearling, and was 

 trained there for all her engagements. She was 

 the joint property of Mr. King, who lived at 

 Ashby de la Launde, and my father, but after I 

 won the ' One Thousand ' on her my father's 

 share w^as bought out, and thereafter she always 

 ran as the property of Mr. King, who was a 

 clergyman, and, like his father before him, bred 

 a number of horses. Manganese was a Bird- 

 catcher, and always a bit irritable, as nearly all 

 the Birdcatchers were. She was a very thick filly, 

 with fine action and great speed, and a hard 

 puller. Her first success as a two-year-old was 

 in the Bishop Burton Stakes at Beverley. She 

 was beaten by Fly by Night in the Convivial at 

 York, after which she won the Municipal Stakes 

 and the Portland Plate at Doncaster in 1855. 



