474 ashgill; or, the life 



CHAPTER XXIV 



" The sere and yellow leaf when years are advancing, 

 The blossoms and summer are scattered and gone." 



Richmond, alas! is now one of the old-fashioned 

 meetings numbered with the things that were, having 

 succumbed to the exactions of the Jockey Club for 

 increased value of stakes, easily provided by the new 

 order of things at our modern enclosure meetings, which 

 reap a rich revenue from the "gates." Many equine 

 giants of the past have strode out over the gradients of 

 Richmond Moor course, which, with its "against the 

 collar" rise for five furlongs, soon found out those of 

 weak pipes. Much to be regretted is the extinction of 

 the venerable and historical meetings of the Richmond 

 and Northallerton class. Some good local sportsmen 

 struggled on for years to keep them in the calendar, 

 but it was found, owing to the sparse population and 

 the thinness of the attendance, the money could not be 

 gathered to make ends meet. Old Jim Watson, and 

 his brother Jacob, trained of late years some useful 

 horses at Richmond, the best Jim probably ever had 

 being Spennithome, who won a Northumberland Plate 

 and a Goodwood Stakes the same year. Old Jim, who 

 delighted to crack about rare old Bee's-wing and 

 her playful pranks as a yearling in the days when, as 

 a lad, he looked after her, died ripe in years 



