38 CHASING AND RACING 



the remotest idea as to whether I should win or be 

 down the course. As matters turned out I was a bad 

 third. Did I pull up on passing the winning post ? 

 Not on your life I I did not stop until I was safe 

 inside the paddock, and when I left its precincts it 

 was in the company of a couple of promising heavy- 

 weights of N.S.C. fame ! Nothing doing for the 

 " Boys " ! 



I have already explained how my cousin and 

 brother-in-law, Ted Jaquet played Pythias to my 

 Damon. Whenever I set to work making a sporting 

 pie (no matter what the ingredients), the lusty Ted 

 was sure to have a finger in it ; therefore, it followed 

 that during the period when I was engaged in pony 

 racing, he became seized or possessed of two gallant 

 but rather dickey animals with which to enrich our 

 string. Futhermore, it now was necessary for him 

 to register his colours. Black jacket. Gold fleur de lys^ 

 back and front. Gold cap. A very chaste and striking 

 design ! which I was quite proud to don on the bigger 

 of my pal's crocks, Winkelman, to wit, a hard- 

 bitten old fiddle-headed brown, whom long and painful 

 experience had taught all there was to know about 

 the game to which he was allocated. His under- 

 standings and joints were more or less callous, but 

 if the ground was extra hard he signified his dis- 

 approval by refusing to gallop a yard. As for 

 *' punishment '* he seemed to possess a pachyder- 

 matous hide utterly impervious to the most strenuous 



