AND TIMES OF JOHN OSBORNE 451 



o'clock — a tribute to the excellence of the company 

 and the amenities of " cracks." 



In his interesting " Riding Recollections," Harry 

 distance thus makes graceful allusion to his old rival 

 in the pigskin : — " As I started riding in the year 

 1856, I have only one contemporary now left — my 

 very old friend John Osborne. It is needless to 

 say that I have the greatest respect for him, both 

 as a personal friend and as a jockey. To my mind 

 Osborne was one of the best judges of pace in a long 

 race — which we rarely see now — I ever saw, and 

 althous^h of late vears considered a trifle slow at the- 

 start, he generally made up for it afterwards. John 

 Osborne never thought of winning except at the 

 winning post. Many riders forget this, and in my 

 experience of ten years as a starter, and twenty-four 

 as a jockey, I have on many occasions seen jockeys so 

 anxious that, after leaving the starting-post with a little 

 the best of it in a five-furlong race, they completely ride 

 their horses down, never minding if they were on their 

 right leg or not. On several occasions during my career, 

 when I have got back to the stand, I have been told that 

 John Osborne, after apparently being out of the race 

 at first, had got up in the last few strides and won, not 

 having bustled his horse during the earher part of the 

 contest, but holding him together, giving him a chance 

 to gallop and making the best use of his action. This, 

 after all, is what a horse has to depend upon to propel 

 him along. A great deal has been said and written 

 about John Osborne not retiring sooner. Some said 

 that he was too old, not allowing for the bad luck he 

 had during the last two years, which might have 

 happened to any younger man. His accidents were not 

 his fault. Osborne could not help a country policeman 



