AND TIMES OF JOHN OSBORNE 21 



It is a fact that great trainers of the past like John 

 Scott, the Dawsons, and John Fobert, with others of 

 celebrity, were not "Yorkshire bred." Death, who, in 

 the long run, always triumphs, has long since claimed 

 for his own most, if not all, of these worthies who were 

 contemporary with the Osbornes from the very outset. 

 Which was the greatest Roman of them all it is not the 

 present task to unfold, for there are many circumstances 

 and conditions and environments to consider in such a 

 problem. Their names are merely recalled incidentally, 

 alongside of the Osbornes, to prove that Yorksire owes 

 a great deal of her Turf greatness and her character 

 to men born outside of her own wide acreage. 



John Howe Osborne, the founder of the family so 

 far as concerns its Turf history, was born at Wetherden, 

 Suffolk, in the year 1801. His third and most 

 celebrated son also named John Howe Osborne, the 

 central figure of this book first saw the light at Gorey 

 House, Bretby, on the 7th of January, 1833. For the 

 sake of brevity and distinctness, the " Howe " in the 

 two names will hereafter be discarded; indeed, to 

 retain it would be confusing to the reader, for when 

 the son first grew into notice as a jockey in 1846 he 

 became known gradually by the diminutives of 

 " Johnnie," " The Pusher," " Mr. John," the " Bank of 

 England Jockey," and other endearing descriptive 

 epithets; while from that period until his death in 

 1865 the father is spoken of as " Old John Osborne," 

 a name thereafter to be applied to the son. 



Of John Osborne the elder's early life little is known 

 up to youthful manhood, but of this assurance is given 

 that he was " among horses " in his native county from 

 the time he was the size of a bucket. That he was not 

 endowed at the outset of his career with worldly riches 



