CHAPTER II 



Financial reverses — Flying Dutchman's Derby — A dread of 

 Derbies — Layers of "safe 'uns" — Bon Mot's Liverpool Sum- 

 mer Cup — A home-made guide — Profit therefrom — A run 

 from Bedford Racecourse to Bletchley — The Cambridgeshire 

 of 1851 — A near prophecy — A Good Friday visit to New- 

 market — Concerning Weathergage — A Derby thrown away — 

 Objections to Plaiting — A " tip " for Stockwell — His Derby 

 defeat — Davies " The Leviathan " — His heavy losses over 

 Daniel O'Rourke — The turn of the tide — My first racehorse. 



To [attempt, in a work of this character, a strict 

 respect for chronology were not so much an irksome 

 task for the writer as one calculated to make a 

 tedious record for the reader. Sixty years is a large 

 span of existence, and even with each year restricted 

 to a chapter the book would swell to the size of that 

 Italian historian's masterpiece rather than read 

 which the prisoner preferred to serve seven years at 

 the galleys. Possibly I have dwelt with more 

 amplitude on some matters than may be reckoned 

 either justifiable or desirable. I can only plead 

 guilty, and put the blame upon a memory that 

 lingers, as dwells a lover upon the initial stages of 

 courtship, on a happy time when I thought the ball 



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