284 STEEPLECHASING 



for some distance. Half a mile from home both horses 

 were tirinor fast, and refused a somewhat formidable 

 fence. Captain Becher on the black horse was the first 

 over, and in the last field but one led by about a length 

 only, but at the last fence the black swerved towards a 

 gap, whereas Mr. Crommelin's horse jumped the fence 

 cleverly enough, but fell heavily on landing in the 

 winning field, "the moment," says the report, "the other 

 passed the gap, making the race a dead heat," though 

 why should that have been the case unless the last fence, 

 or rather the other side of it, was the winning post ? 

 Then it was disappointing to both Mr. A. Pierson and 

 Mr. Carr, whose horses ran a fine race in Norfolk in 

 April 1833, that after keeping together for nearly the 

 whole of the four miles it should not have been decided 

 who was the winner, so both owners claimed the stakes. 



1833 



In giving an account of a steeplechase that took 

 place from Weston Wood to Gravenhill, in the Bicester 

 country, on the 7th of March 1833, the writer thereof, 

 on the strength of one of the competitors being Mr. 

 Deacon's Jack Tar, let himself go, in nautical phrase- 

 ology. He set out by calling the race "a trimming 

 affair," and in describing the finish said that "Jack Tar 

 unreefed all his canvas to the wind, came up with a wet 

 sail, and arrived first in port with flying colours ; " the fact 

 of both horses having jumped into two of the three 

 brooks may perhaps have had something to do with the 

 " wet sail." 



That inveterate matchmaker. Colonel Charretie, ran 

 his famous grey Napoleon (10 st.) against Mr. Whist- 

 ler's The Countess (10 st. 5 lbs), starting from a field 

 three miles on the Northampton side of Dunchurch, the 



