AND TIMES OF JOHN OSBORNE 431 



their young stock they don't adopt the plan of shutting them up in 

 their boxes ; they have open " hovels " in which they run about as they 

 like. No doubt the modern system of training is against bleeding and 

 sweating. And for why? The constitution of horses nowadays is so 

 fine that they cannot stand the bleeding and sweating they used to do. 

 Old Tom Parr, who trained Rataplan, Saacebox, Fisherman, and other 

 good horses in the old days, when he was hard up, used to let his horses 

 feed in the hedge-side as he walked them from one place to another. I 

 knew an old Doctor Brown who used to sit up with Tom Parr for weeks 

 together and he told me all this. I went to Whitewall the year before 

 Warlock won the St. Leger for Mr. Anthony Nichol, who was a New- 

 castle man, and one of the most successful that ever owned a few horses. 

 I lived with John Scott from that time until he died in 1871. Old John 

 and I never had a word. He taught me my business, and I went 

 through the routine of stable life from the lowest to the highest. He* 

 put me forward as head man at Whitewall, and I travelled with the 

 horses in that capacity. He was the best and kindest of masters — 

 large-hearted and charitable to a degree. It was his custom to kill a 

 fat bullock for the poor of Malton every Christmas, and to send any 

 number of Christmas presents to his friends for miles around. He was 

 a man who used to read a great deal, Scott's Waverley Novels being his 

 favourite reading. Lund told us a great deal more that afternoon, but 

 ■we shall cut matters short by the following anecdote relating to old 

 Tom Dawson : — 



" It was just after Pretender had won the Derby that the late John 

 Peart, Jem Perren, and myself called at Tupgill on old Tom Dawson to 

 hear him crack about the race. The same afternoon, after Pretender 

 had won, Tom Dawson left London for Middleham. He had backed 

 Pretender in the ring for a lot of ready money, amounting to some 

 hundreds of pounds. He put the notes into an old hat-box he had vs^ith 

 him, with only a piece of string tied round it. In travelling North by 

 the Scotch train he placed the hat-box under the carriage seat. He 

 left the train at Northallerton, forgetting the box with its pile of notes, 

 and did not discover his loss luitil he got home. The box and its 

 contents were lost for three weeks, when they were returned to him 

 •without a single note missing." 



