ORGANISED STEEPLECHASING 41 



The middle ground men in the old coaching days 

 often had a hard struggle to make both ends meet, since 

 they had none of the bookings, and a little bad luck 

 with their horses frequently brought about a great loss. 

 Mr. Mason, senior, was unfortunate in his coaching 

 speculations, so giving up his house and business at 

 Stilton, he removed to Woodhall, Pinner, a step which 

 had no slight influence upon the after life of his son Jem. 

 Old Mr. Mason's new residence adjoined Dove House 

 Farm, where Mr. Tilbury, the famous dealer, and father 

 of the first husband of Miss Lydia Thompson, the actress, 

 kept a fine stud of two hundred hunters. When the 

 family moved to Pinner, young Jem, to save his father 

 the price of his coach fare, rode his Galloway the whole 

 distance, covering the eighty miles in the day. He had 

 not been at Pinner very long before Tilbury engaged him 

 as roughrider, and he used to be occupied in schooling- 

 six or eight horses a day. His schooling duties neces- 

 sarily led to his hunting a great deal. It was with 

 Mr. De Burgfli's staof-hounds that he first met Bill Bean, 

 while he was also well known with the Old Berkeley, 

 then under Mr. Harvey Combe, and the Hertfordshire, 

 then kept by Mr. Sebright, and hunted by Tom Oldaker. 

 It was with this pack that his probable steeplechase 

 abilities were first discovered, the discoverer being none 

 other than Lord Frederick Beauclerc. who asserted that 

 "that boy picks his ground better than any ot them." 

 Taking a fancy to him, he asked him to ride that 

 hard puller, The Poet, a few times with hounds, and 

 then, as already mentioned, gave him the mount on him 

 in the St. Albans steeplechase. 



The weight in those days was twelve stone each, 

 and as young Jem Mason scaled something under eight 

 stone, he had to carry more than four stone of dead 

 weight. The Poet refused the first fence ; but ultimately, 

 as told above, won in a common canter. He next rode 



