AND TIMES OF JOHN OSBORNE 109 



across the Channel as avenging their debacle at 

 Waterloo. The French press was pardonably jubilant 

 at the defeat of per fide Albion, a defeat which had 

 been emphasised by the previous victories on EngHsh 

 .ground of Vermont and Fille de I'Air. 



It was in the season of 1868 that our lontr-since 

 famous jocke}^ — for Fame had truly cast her glamour 

 over him — became closelv identified with the con- 

 federates, Mr. A. Johnstone and Mr. Eobert (now Sir 

 Robert) Jardine, two keen and liberal patrons of the 

 Turf at the time. Tom Dawson trained their horses* 

 at Tupgill. Between him and John Osborne a warm 

 friendship existed for years, remaining unchanged until 

 the great trainer's death at Thorngill, in the year 1880. 

 During the season of 1868, so far as the calls upon him 

 as a jockey were concerned, John was in partial activity, 

 riding only at about a dozen meetings. Yet we shall 

 see that the Tupgill connection, through Pretender, a 

 brown horse by Adventurer from Ferina, who was a two- 

 year-old in '68, was ^stined to j^ave the way for him 

 realising a jockey's greatest ambition — the winning 

 of an Epsom Derby, a feat he had yet failed to achieve, 

 and did not repeat. Few as were his mounts 

 this year, they served to show him up in a favourable 

 light. He began well by riding three winners — on 

 Honesty, Flying Jib, and Good Hope — at Liverpool, 

 supplementing that by a like number at Ripon on 

 Master Tom (twice) and Inon ; other successes included 

 those on Thorwaldsen in a sweepstake, value £705, at 

 Doncaster, and the Doncaster Cup on Mandrake, who 

 was a good horse that day, for amongst others of class 

 behind him was Julius. 



Glancing for a few moments at the Tupgill horses 

 this year of '68 and the two-year-old running with its 



