g6 My First Steeple-chaser. 



As soon as we got home, an important ceremony took place- 

 that of re-christening our horse. He had now distinguished him- 

 self j i^o/. had been bid for him, in two places, as the auctioneers 

 say, before we left Findon, and we considered he was fully entitled 

 to a less plebeian name than Dot-and-Go-One. Now the christening 

 of a horse who has three or four masters is not an easy matter j. 

 each one of us had a fancy name of his own. I thought " Splinter 

 Bar" appropriate, on account of his having been bought out of a 

 coach. Tom leant to " Rory O'More," or ^'^ Donald Caird," 

 probably from having some kindred feehng with these worthies. 

 The Vet. had hardly a mind on the subject, so long as he was con- 

 sulting physician, and Tom was jockey. He fancied the old horse 

 good enough to win under any name, so we just left the choice ta 

 the old man, who, to our great surprise, went at once into the 

 classics, and thouglit Hercules would " look very well on paper." 

 I fancy it would have puzzled him to tell us who Hercules was,, 

 for, as old Baron Alderson observed to one of the witnesses in the 

 noted Running Rein case, when the counsel asked him where they 

 got the name of Maccabeus from, '' Oh ! that name comes out of 

 a book which your party very seldom look into." However^ 



Hercules it was, and three weeks after Mr. 's br. g. Hercules 



(late Dot-and-Go-One) figured in the entries for a steeple-chase in. 

 Warwickshire. This time, however, Hercules came home without 

 the cockades, for he was beaten cleverly by Powell on the Grey (1 

 believe, candidly, through jockeyship, though none of us told Tom 

 so, as we did not much mind, for we had httle or nothing on the 

 race, and saved our stake). His work, however, now began in. 

 earnest. It did not suit my old friend when he had a good bit of 

 stuff to work upon to let him stand idle, and throughout the whole 

 summer Hercules and Tom had a merry time of it, flitting about 

 the country like two Will-o'-the-Wisps, from one little race meeting 

 to another ; and wherever there was a small plate or hurdle-race to 

 be run for, they were sure to make their appearance on the morning 

 of the race, sweeping off everything before them till they became 

 almost as notorious i" our district as old Isaac and Sam Darling 



