The Leather Plater, q^t^;^ 



old man who had so faithfully performed the trust which he had 

 undertaken^ and proved himself so kind a father to the orphan 

 girl. 



It would be tedious to follow the career of the leather-plater 

 through the four subsequent years that we owned him. He won 

 most of the stakes which he ran for, but the expenses took a good 

 deal of the profits, and as these half-bred stakes are never very 

 large when they come to be divided, but a small share fell to each 

 of us that were part owners of Chance. Still we had a good 

 deal of fun with him, and the man who does not possess the means 

 of owning a good thorough-bred racer, will find, perhaps, as much 

 pleasure and excitement, at a far less cost, by running a good leather- 

 plater. What generally licks him, however, is this — he is apt to 

 think too much of his cock-tail, and run him in company which he 

 finds too late are "a leetle" too good for him. 



The last race in which we ran our leather-plater was his most 

 uulucky one. It was a hurdle-race in Nottinghamshire, and as com- 

 plaints had been made the year before that the hurdles were not 

 stiff enough, the stewards were determined that there should be no 

 mistake this year. They put them up 4 ft. 6 in. high, supported by 

 stiffs posts driven into the ground, and strong bars were mortised 

 into the tops of them throughout their whole length. Chance won 

 the first heat easily without a mistake, and only one horse went 

 against him for the second. This was a farmer's horse, ridden by 

 his owner, and it was a guinea to a shilhng on Chance. A friend 

 of mine, who was certainly one of the most unlucky betters out, was 

 on the stand, and as our horse cleared the hurdles opposite, and went 

 on with the lead, pulling double, the young farmer being hard at 

 work with his horse some fifty lengths behind, my friend observed 

 that it was the hollowest thing he ever saw, and offered ^oZ. to 10^. 

 on Chance. A sleek bookmaker, who stood by his side, took him 

 up at once, and booked the bet with this terse remark, " Mind, Mr. 



, it's the odds and not the horse that tempts me." They had to 



come once more round, and win just below the stand. The race was 

 two-mile heats, and I really think that our horse would have distanced 



