454 ASHGILL; OR, THE LIFE 



before retired as a jockey, although he started ten 

 years after Osborne began in '46, and on his retirement 

 became a licensed starter under the Jockey Club. In 

 '92 John Osborne was in his fifty-ninth year, and had 

 actually been before the public as a horseman upwards 

 of forty-six years continuously. John Osborne himself 

 could have reached, in all human probability, Chifney's 

 record had it not been for the solicitude of his friends in 

 '92, when they presented him with his magnificent testi- 

 monial of 3600. Even now at the time we are writing 

 (1899) John Osborne is hale, hearty, and strong, and 

 were he to seek his licence again, there is little doubt 

 but that he would never be short of a mount in the 

 classic or long-distance races, though, of course, he 

 could not be expected to bustle along with the 

 "butcher boys" in a pillar-to-post scramble over five 

 furlongs. 



"To bear out what I have said," adds Custance, 

 "only two years ago (1892) I myself started John 

 Osborne in three races at Carlisle, on a very hot day, 

 in forty minutes, and he rode one winner and two dead 

 heats. This takes a bit of reckoning up, and also 

 beating. I will explain how it was done. Lodore and 

 Dissenter ran a dead heat on the last day for the last 

 race but one, and every one was anxious to catch the 

 train, so we got permission to run the deciding heat 

 directly after the last race, and as there was only thirty 

 minutes between the last two, the decider came off ten 

 minutes afterwards with the same result (a second dead 

 heat). These were the only two horses I said I would 

 ever undertake to handicap, as I never saw two so close 

 together. Chandley made the running the first time, 

 and I thought he had just got up ; but, of course, the 

 judge in the box is the only man who can tell on such 



