38 " MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE ! " 



by Jerry, and his younger brother, foaled 1858, was 

 called Mr Rarey. 



These horses used to be kept most of their time at 

 Sowerby and worked on Thirsk race-course, under the 

 supervision of James Ayton, who, on the death of Tommy 

 Ware, became Parish Clerk at Kilvington. Such were 

 " training-grooms " in those days. 



Nor was that all, for the late Squire F. Bell, of Thirsk, 

 who also bred not a few good horses there, had some of 

 them trained on Thirsk race-course by his coachman, 

 Swallwell possibly not up to racing point. I remember 

 having seen Attache working there, and he won the 

 Hunt Cup at Ascot in 1866 as a four-year-old, but that 

 was when Mr J. Angell owned him. He was by Saunterer 

 out of La Victime by Flatcatcher, her dam La Femme 

 Sage by Gainsborough. This was an old Thirsk breed, 

 for La Femme Sage was owned by the better-known John 

 Bell, the predecessor of F. Bell at the Hall, Thirsk. 

 Perhaps the best horse Mr F. Bell ever bred was 

 Kaleidoscope, who was sold as a yearling by the executors, 

 and I, who was there, was one of the last bidders for him 

 but that is another and later story. 



An earlier produce of Kaleidoscope's dam was Lingerer, 

 by Loiterer, and I saw him run at Thirsk for the Mowbray 

 Stakes, when Syrian won, the same year that Scarrington 

 won the Hunt Cup, ridden by Tom Spence, who is, I hope, 

 still alive. 



Mr Arrowsmith possessed a mare who used to be spoken 

 of almost with reverence as " the Venison Mare," so great 

 was the fame of Venison blood at that time. She was 

 out of Sally Warfoot by Defence, and it was from 

 her that he bred, in 1858, Carlton by Turnus. His 

 naming of the Flatcatcher colt out of Jane Eyre, 

 foaled that same year, Mr Rarey, was doubtless to show 

 his opinion of the horse-taming " boom," which Rarey 

 had about that time created. 



It amuses me even now to think of Mr Arrowsmith, 

 a very florid, middle-sized, round-faced man, with jay- 



