174 CHASING AND RACING 



whip hand ? Besides, it is certain that my mount 

 would have become quite as disgruntled as the other, 

 and would have acted accordingly. 



So ended this unique contest. The betting was 

 5-2 on The Pusher. There were not wanting those 

 who sneeringly observed that the odds would have been 

 the other way, if the riders had been reversed. 



These ill-natured remarks were hardly justified, 

 seeing that, in a mile handicap just before the match, 

 The Pusher had been set to concede Trelaske 10 lbs., 

 though as neither of them was pulled out for the event, 

 it is impossible to say what the respective merits of the 

 two really amounted to. But this is not the end of this 

 strange eventful history. 



On returning to the dressing-room, where Watts 

 was donning colours for the next race (there is no 

 ** gentleman riders' '' attiring-room at Newmarket), 

 he remarked to me in his quiet, unassuming way : 



** What a brute that old Pusher is ! When you 

 took up your whip I thought it was all up with me ! '' 



Obviously, what he meant was that the sight of my 

 whip would cause his mount to shut up like a knife, 

 as he had done on many previous occasions. 



Of course I never for a moment imagined that the 

 famous jockey's implication was that, in a close finish, 

 he would have had reason to dread my prowess. 



But there was at that time a so-called " sporting " 

 paper (which had an ephemeral existence), the special 

 commissioner of which thought fit to carpet me for 



