28 STEEPLECHASING 



deceived his backers, and was always noted for perse- 

 vering to the very end, and many a race did he win by 

 tiring out an opponent, or winning by a narrow margin 

 when his leader had fallen. Whether he won or lost, 

 however, he was always in the same even frame of 

 mind, and was as ready to sing a song after one of his 

 supposed certainties had been upset as he was when he 

 brought off one of them. 



Of the many horses he rode, he was perhaps most 



closely identified with Vivian, on whom he won the great 



race at Aylesbury when the Marquis of Waterford and 



Mr. John Elmore regarded it as a certainty for Lancet 



and Grimaldi respectively. The Marquis of Waterford 



was so chagfrined at Lancet's defeat that he matched 



Cock Robin against Vivian for a thousand guineas, and 



was beaten over the Market Harborough course, owing 



to a fine exhibition of patient riding on the part of 



Captain Becher. In the following year Saladin beat 



Vivian for the heavy weight race ; but Becher won the 



light weight race. At St. Albans the famous Grimaldi 



died with him just after he had won, and, says a writer 



of the time, " the death of Grimaldi also furnished a 



striking subject for the artists of the day, and ' the 



heavy man ' of the Adelphi or the Surrey might have 



imbibed a useful lesson from the attitude and agony 



which the Captain displayed when gazing on his dead 



favourite. He lived at that period when Powell on 



Saladin might be seen in the prints jumping a brook at 



Aylesbury as wide as the St. Lawrence, and when Dan 



SefTert, on Parasol, was depicted clearing a fence some 



fifteen feet high, and dwelling on the top of it like 



Mahomet's Coffin between heaven and earth." 



It was not only across country that Captain Becher 

 displayed his skill. He was very successful on the flat, 

 and among other victories his win on Mr. Bowes's 

 Jagger at Croxton Park, after breaking a stirrup leather 



