246 " MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE ! " 



reasonable position and had found good friends, such as 

 the late George Bankes, Charles Mellor, Tindal Atkinson 

 and others of the local division. Leeds Borough Sessions, 

 West Riding Sessions and various odds and ends of 

 practice, besides Northallerton Sessions and the North 

 Eastern Circuit, kept me fairly busy, and I had a brass 

 plate with my name on it outside somewhat pretentious 

 chambers, and a very small clerk named Pickles. Why 

 it should have been orthodox to have a brass plate at 

 Leeds while such a thing would be unimaginable in London, 

 I know not, but I have the brass plate somewhere or 

 other to this day. 



But before all this had happened, and indeed before 

 the end of the Scarborough visit, I had, of course, been 

 to Doncaster to see Silvio win the St Leger. Never do I 

 remember a horse striking off into more perfect action than 

 he did as he commenced his canter past the stands to the 

 start. I had seen his stable companion, Lady Golightly, 

 win the Great Yorkshire Stakes at York August Meeting, 

 but never doubted which would win the Leger. I had 

 10 on Silvio and I have never backed a horse for more. 

 It is a matter of history, of course, that he won easily 

 from Lady Golightly. 



Thus the " boom " at Cobham was continued. Blair 

 Athol headed the list of winning stallions that year by 

 more than 10,000 sovereigns, and we raised his fee to 

 200 guineas, which turned out to be a fatal policy. 



The fly in the ointment, so far as I was concerned, at 

 Leeds was that I could not pay visits to Cobham, though 

 it was possible to attend occasional Board meetings by 

 an early express to town, and return the same evening. 

 Somehow, despite the magnificent superficial show of the 

 stud, I began to feel that all was not well. Moreover, 

 our best friends among breeders, such as Lord Falmouth 

 and Mr Stirling Crawford, resolutely refused to pay more 

 than 100 guineas fee, even for Blair Athol. 



Personally I had involved myself in various financial 

 transactions, one of which concerned a patent for turning 



