AND TIMES OF JOHN OSBORNE 209 



those of Doncaster, York, or even a place like Richmond, 

 where some of the greatest horses of the past have run 

 for fifty and hundred pound plates, may be ascribed the 

 decline in the North. Were the sinews of war forth- 

 coming now as they were in the days of " The Fl}dng 

 Dutchman " Earl, or of the Dundases at Richmond, or 

 of John Scott at Whitewall, proof would not be wanting 

 that good horses could yet be brought out in the North 

 as well as in the South. Truly enough the old adage that 

 " money makes the mare to go " comes in here. The 

 Dawsons, in the far north at Gullane ; Old Croft, who 

 could train the first four in Theodore's St. Leger; and 

 Tom Dawson, at Middleham ; together with " The 

 Wizard," and old William I' Anson, at Malton, demon- 

 strated that, with wealth behind them, they were indeed 

 " Masters of the Horse." Sic transit gloria mundi I 



Quarter of a century is a big span in a jockey's 

 lifetime. But ours is yet the pleasant task to show that 

 John Osborne had only got half through his professional 

 pilgrimage; that there were yet other great triumphs 

 in store for one who is yet hale and hearty in 1900 — still 

 up with the lark in the morning, looking after his 

 Brecongill team, riding not only at exercise in his sixty- 

 eighth year, morning after morning, but actually taking 

 part in trials with his " feathers," not one of whom yet 

 can give him an ounce either over a half-mile sprint 

 with a yearhng, or over the pumping two miles from 

 the foot to the top of Middleham Moor. 



But to our moutons again, with John loquitur — 



"Agility was a two-year-old in '69, and 

 belonged to Mr. ' Launde,' and won several good 

 races, including the Park Hill at Doncaster, and 

 ran a dead heat with Enterprise for the 

 Doncaster Stakes. She ran until she was five 



