394 ASHGILL; OR, THE LIFE 



His most notable achievement was the Derby and St. 

 Leger double event on Blair Athol. A great horseman 

 with fine hands, no jockey could get more out of a 

 horse when his bosom "pal," Nat Outred, had him 

 "fit," and, like his old rival John Osborne, he was 

 extremely popular in the North of England. 



Jim Snowden did not live in the times when it was 

 the fashion of noblemen to pension their jockeys who 

 had served them with fidelity. In this manner the 

 Duke of Rutland bestowed favour upon the great Jim 

 Eobinson for winning the Derby on Cadland in 1828. 

 That pension saved the famous horseman from the 

 workhouse. Clift, the rider of Tiresias, winner of the 

 Derby for the Duke of Portland in 1819, was rewarded 

 in similar fashion by his noble patron. Clift was most 

 famous in his period, and previous to Tiresias he had 

 won the Derby on Waxy in 1793, on Champion in 1800, 

 and on Sir H. Williamson's Ditto three years later. 

 He twice won the Oaks, viz., on the Duke of Grafton's 

 Pelisse in 1804, and on the same owner's Morel in 

 1808 ; and the St. Leger on Lord Fitzwilliam's Paulina 

 in 1807, and the Duke of Grafton's Whalebone, by 

 Waxy, in 1810. Clift enjoyed a pension of 50 per 

 annum from the then Duke of Portland, the same 

 amount from " Kit " Wilson, and 30 per annum from 

 Earl Fitzwilliam. What he considered his greatest 

 feat was winning the Derby in a canter on Sir H. 

 Williamson's Ditto. When in the saddle, he was a 

 terrible punisher of a horse. He retired to Newmarket, 

 and it is related of him, when approaching eighty 

 years of age, and within two years of his death, he 

 would take a walk from headquarters as far as Bury 

 St. Edmunds and back, a distance of twenty-eight 



