ioo " MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE ! " 



Then again : 



Mr A. is being urged on by almost daily letters from me and 

 visits from Tom to get a horse. He has commissioned Cole to 

 buy one at Sir C. Constable's sale. 



Cole, mentioned above, was the straightforward and 

 popular horse-dealer, Tom Cole, who had a stable near 

 Thirsk station. He failed to buy what was wanted at 

 the sale, and writing from Rugby, on loth December 1869, 

 I gave the following intimation : 



I dare say I shall bring a horse back with me. Mr Colling has 

 discovered one where he is now staying near Loughbro', which 

 will be warranted, and is a capital hunter and drives well. He is 

 going to ride the horse himself to make further trial and will let 

 me know the result. 



It will interest a good many younger people to know 

 that " Mr Colling " was Bob Colling, son of that grand 

 old sportsman, the late John Colling, of Hurworth, and 

 this same Bob Colling as good a man on a horse as you 

 could wish to see is the father of Bob Colling, who is now 

 one of the most successful trainers at Newmarket, and 

 was, earlier on, a first-rate jockey. 



Bob Colling the elder is alive now, and at the time of my 

 letter he was staying with a friend of his named Paget, 

 from whom he bought for me a horse whose reputation 

 even now lingers in North Yorkshire. His name was 

 Cobweb. He was a hog-maned, powerful beast, very 

 short of breeding, but an extraordinary jumper, especially 

 at timber and water. His owner had schooled him at 

 timber by always riding him at the post, so that he 

 never chanced it, and indeed, if left to himself, would 

 jump the post rather than the rails. He lasted me a good 

 many years, but what he cost I do not remember. That, 

 of course, was a matter for Mr Arrowsmith. 



In pursuit of a horse I have gone too far ahead, and must 

 revert to that first term of 1867, when my place was in 

 the Vlth, but corporeally I was in the Twenty. Already 

 the blight of being out of control had commenced, and I 



