ORGANISED STEEFLECHASING 45 



little ready money. "Don't you sell your horse," said 

 Jem, "but send him to me, and I will win you a race," 

 while the advice was accompanied by a five pound note 

 to pay the cost of the horse's transit. The amount of 

 the added money caused Mason to enter Olliver's horse 

 for a steeplechase at Harlesden Green, and Olliver's man 

 sent Trust- Me- Not fitted with an enormously powerful 

 bit, for he was a great puller ; but this Jem at once took 

 off, replacing it by a double-reined snaffle. He won the 

 race cleverly and put Tom Olliver on his legs again. 

 This victory Jem followed up with several others. At 

 St. Albans Trust-Me-Not made a tremendous leap ; at 

 Derby he over-jumped himself and came down, breaking 

 Jem's leg, an accident which confined him to his bed for 

 so long a time that he was unable to ride Miss Mowbray 

 at Liverpool. 



To Paris he went with his best pupil, Lord Strath- 

 more, to win the first big steeplechase ever run there. 

 When it was seen that Lord Strathmore could not win 

 on Switcher, Jem Mason set St. Leger going, and just 

 snatched the race out of the fire. The last occasion on 

 which he ever wore cap and jacket was when he came 

 out of his retirement, at the special request of Lord 

 Strathmore, to ride Abd-el-Kader in a match against The 

 Clown, and if the horse had not been eot at, he mig^ht 

 have won ; as it was, he had to pull up after he had gone 

 about a mile. After he gave up steeplechase riding he 

 went into business with his brother Tom, and his first 

 wife having died in the meantime, he married as his 

 second Miss Seckham, daughter of Seckham, the famous 

 Oxford dealer and hirer out of hunters to undergraduates. 

 After his second marriage he dissolved partnership with 

 his brother, and carried on the business of a horsedealer 

 in Mount Street and at Hendon. 



From his earliest days Jem Mason was something of 

 a dandy, in fact so particular was he about his clothes, 



