422 ASHGILL; OB, THE LIFE 



a bit. Although she turned her toes in very 

 much, she could go fast. 



"You are looking at Pretender on the wall 

 there. He looks very light in the picture. A 

 week before the St. Leger, Mr. Thomas Dawson 

 told me the horse had not been feeding well 

 owing to one of his teeth being loose. It was 

 suspected that he hadn't digested his food, which 

 didn't do him that amount of good it should have 

 done. I fancy that in consequence the horse 

 was not so well as he might have been when 

 Pero Gomez beat him in the St. Leger. Two 

 days after that race Pero Gomez only beat him 

 half a length in the Doncaster Stakes. Wells 

 had to spur ' Pero ' to win, and a good deal 

 spurred he was, too. 



" You ask me if I believe in the spur. Well, 

 yes, to some horses. Free-going horses don't 

 require it; you can kick them to get them to do 

 their best. Very few horses require the whip; 

 but you can get one now and again that will 

 not go with the spur, yet will bear a lot of the 

 whip. The whip has a tendency to frighten the 

 horse. Bill Scott fairly cut the Derby out of 

 Mundig, who, like his sire Catton, was a very 

 idle horse. 



" Apology was a good, wide mare. To get 

 her really straight you might train her at home 

 until she couldn't beat anything. She was a 

 mare that always wanted the excitement of the 

 race to see her at her best. That year we ran 

 her in the Ebor Handicap at York won by Lily 

 Agnes, I thought she was sure to win. She 

 came on at the end of her four-year-old season. 



