40 STEEPLECHASING 



who generally had a good horse or two in his stable. 

 Jem Mason rode The Poet, that being about his first 

 appearance in a big race. Lord Frederick was im- 

 mensely pleased at winning, but next day he said to 

 Coleman, " I wish these newspaper blackguards would 

 leave me alone ; they keep hitting me." Said Coleman, 

 "Why.^" The reply was, "Don't you see? Because 

 I am a parson." Lord Frederick Beauclerc and Cole- 

 man were great fi'iends, and they used to play billiards 

 together for half a sov^ereign a game for hours together. 

 Coleman was with him just before he died ; but the 

 old gentleman could not speak, when Lady Beauclerc 

 said, " I know by his eyes that he wants you to have a 

 glass of wine and a biscuit." 



As already mentioned, this was Jem Mason's first 

 appearance in public, at any rate in an important steeple- 

 chase, so at this stage a notice of the great horseman 

 may not be out of place. 



Jem Mason was born at Stilton, where his father bred, 

 and dealt in, hunters, and was mixed up in the stage coach- 

 inor business. It is said that Mason senior had about the 

 best collection of hunters to be seen anywhere. Jem 

 was educated at Huntingdon Grammar School, where 

 he was a contemporary of F"rank Butler, the famous 

 flat-race jockey. Being the third son he was kept at 

 home a good deal, his elder brothers, Newcomb and 

 Tom, being already out in the world. 



Of course from early infancy Jem Mason was ac- 

 customed to ride, and he began his hunting career on a 

 pony which was such a wonderful performer that Sir 

 Richard Sutton bought him to teach his sons to ride 

 over a country. Deprived of his pony, Jem was pro- 

 moted to a Galloway, which in his hands turned out 

 quite a finished boy's hunter ; but the first full-sized horse 

 he ever rode belonged to his father, and ran leader in 

 the York Express. 



