AND TIMES OF JOHN OSBORNE 161 



and Agnes, and for soundness a wonder. He began on 

 29th March, and had run twenty-four races and won 

 nine of them on 28th October, the day after his com- 

 panion, Lady Tatton, had won the Nursery Stakes. 

 Next year Manganese, giving 2 st. 4 Ibs. to Shelah, was 

 second for the Nursery Stakes, and the year after that 

 old John nailed one of the Nurseries again" with Mongrel 

 under no very flattering weight, so that the Newmarket 

 Houghton Friday had nothing but good omens for him. 

 Great weight for age races were not his forte, although 

 he did drop on Blair Athol at York with The Miner. 

 Lady Tatton was third for him in the St. Leger, but 

 he never got so near for a Derby or Oaks. Honeywood's 

 friends made a braying of trumpets about the black 

 which not a little disturbed the repose of the backers 

 of ' The West,' but John was wrong that time. He 

 looked very downcast following Saunterer in the 

 paddock on the Derby day, and threw up his hands 

 and told his friends he ' knew nothing about him ' ; but 

 the public watched the money, and knew as much as he 

 could tell them as to the ' pencil fever,' which was slowly 

 consuming the colt in the interior. In his day he trained 

 for a number of good men Lord Zetland, Lord 

 Londesborough, Sir Charles Monck, and others, but he 

 was very independent, and had every right to be so. 

 What was better still, prosperity never puffed him up. 

 He was really and truly ' Plain John ' to the last. 

 ' Little fish,' in the way of stakes and little meetings, 

 were what he loved. Handicap studies were his forte ; 

 and go past who might, he hardly looked up from the 

 desk at the office window which looked into the yard 

 at Ashgill. The calculations he had in his head about 

 * form ' were as clear and as well arranged as a Senior 

 Wrangler's differentials and integrals, and we never 

 M 



