io8 THE RACING WORLD 



get down, imagined that I had been over-eating 

 myself and lolling about in an armchair between 

 meals, drinking brandy and soda, I suppose ; and I 

 expect he had never known what it was to be 

 hungry — ravenous, with nice food which you 

 mustn't touch within reach. One of the papers 

 said that I had lost my strength trying to get down, 

 and so could not half do justice to the horse, and 

 was foolish to try ; so you see you get blamed both 

 ways. This is the other side of the picture I was 

 telling you about. 



The papers ? Yes. Some of them are very 

 good and give wonderfully true accounts of things, 

 and of course the jockeys help, and tell the reporters 

 what has happened in a race — very often no one 

 else could ; in the Cesarewitch, for example, and 

 races like that out of sight of the stands for a long 

 way, unless the jockeys gave details the reporters 

 could not very well get them. But a lot of 

 nonsense is written at times. I have ridden what I 

 knew were good races — one does know — and have 

 been blamed for coming too soon or too late, or for 

 something or other, when I am sure I was right ; 

 and I have been praised for doing wonderfully 

 clever things when I have really ridden wretchedly 

 bad races, got muddled, and without deserving it 

 landed by a sort of a fluke — won by sheer luck. If 



