so STEEPLECHASING 



shaking, while Grimaldi strained himself so badly that 

 Bean could not continue to ride him. The Poet cut 

 short any chance he might have possessed by staking 

 himself so badly that it was found necessary to destroy 

 him. As the finish drew near, Parasol and The Flyer led 

 alternately ; the former then refused a fence, but soon 

 joined her horses again, and Norma fell, but being 

 quickly remounted wore down Parasol and won by 

 between three and four lengths ; The Flyer was third. 

 In a very few minutes after the result of the race was 

 announced, an objection was lodged against Captain 

 Becher and his mount on the ground that the Captain had 

 gone on the wrong side of a flag, and that several other 

 riders had unwittingly followed the lead of one usually 

 so trustworthy. The umpire had a long consultation 



twelve or fourteen years to run. He began hunting before Mr. Meynell 

 gave up the Quorn to Lord Sefton ; and, at the time of his death, was the 

 last of the original steeplechase riders ; he won an extraordinarily large 

 proportion of the races for which he started. He was once a horse-dealer 

 in London, and while carrying on that business used to keep a few hounds 

 down Neasden way, to run a drag so that his horses could be tried with 

 hounds. For a long time he made all Mat Milton's best hunters, for he 

 had beautiful hands, as good, they used to say, as those of Jem Mason 

 himself ; he was desperately hard over a country, and rode some very 

 notable steeplechases. He won the St. Albans steeplechase on Captain 

 Fairlie's Antelope in 1833, and rode Grimaldi and Rochelle in the two 

 famous years. He rode a good deal for Mr. Joseph Anderson and Mr. 

 Elmore, and on his own horse Beanstalk he won a good race at Ware, 

 Herts. In his later years he lived at Golder's Green, next to Jem Mason's 

 farm, and used to keep a few couples of hounds and a red deer or two. 

 T/ie Dritid calls him " The Arch Trespasser," and he certainly used to get 

 into a good deal of trouble for trespassing when he took out his primitive 

 stag hunting establishment ; but The Druid appears to have rather over- 

 stated his alleged misdeeds. " It was great fun," one of his friends used to 

 say, "to see Billy Bean, when chivied by an irate farmer, keep calling out, 

 ' I'm very sorry that I can't stop now, but we will meet at your place to- 

 morrow.' " At last he grew too infirm to sit upon a horse, so his little pack 

 was broken up and his favourite hind found a purchaser in the then Baron 

 Rothschild for ^50, as he used to declare. On the first occasion, however, 

 on which she was turned out in the Vale she unfortunately lost her life. 

 Whatever else Bill Bean was, he was always a gentleman in behaviour, and 

 he never indulged in strong language. His portrait on Beanstalk, his 

 favourite horse, was painted by Laporte, and was afterwards engraved. 



