AND TIMES OF JOHN OSBORNE 17 



The walls of the adjoining smoke-room are also 

 embellished with portraits of notable horses with which 

 his father, John, and. his brothers Robert and William 

 were associated for long years during their reign at 

 Ashgill. There is Priam, pronounced by the still-living 

 John Kent to be the grandest type of a thoroughbred 

 he ever saw. Lord Chesterfield bought Priam from the 

 celebrated Chifneys for 3000 guineas, and he won that 

 great sportsman the Derby of 1830. The same noble- 

 man's Zinganee, which old John Osborne, as well as 

 Priam, had under his charge for a time when first he 

 went to Bretby to look after Lord Chesterfield's stud 

 for a brief period in his younger days, is also pictorially 

 illustrated. The old Ashgill mare, Lady Trespass (dam 

 of Cathedral), who was the joint property of Mr. 

 William Hudson and old John Osborne, also has her 

 space. Mr. R. N. Batts' grand old horse, Thorn, a great 

 favourite of " Mr. John's," with him in the saddle, 

 could not but be included in the gallery. Portraits of 

 George Fordham and General Peel, with old prints 

 of Hambletonian and Diamond and Haphazard, suggest 

 many a story. Excellent photos of old John Osborne 

 and his son Robert; of Mr. John Johnstone, the 

 master of the Dumfriesshire hounds ; an oil painting of 

 Ringlet (foaled in 1829), by Whisker, the property of 

 Mr. Jacques, of Easby Abbey; of Bendigo, with Tom 

 Cannon up ; of Bloomsbury, winner of the Derby in 

 1839, Templeman up; and a print of Pretender are 

 prominent amongst other subjects on the walls. John's 

 sympathy with the " leash " is shown in the drawing- 

 room by a fine steel engraving of the celebrated picture 

 of Ashdown Coursing Meeting. Portraits of that good 

 mare, Stone Clink (who won for Mr. R. C. Vyner and 

 Ashgill a Northumberland Plate and the Cesarewitch 



