FELIX LEACH 229 



how John Osborne rode Vedette and Pretender and 

 Apology and Prince Charlie (in the Two Thousand 

 Guineas). Those were great performances, judgment 

 of pace being shown to perfection when he made all 

 the running on Apology for the Ascot Cup and defeated 

 his brother-in-law, Tom Chaloner, who had ridden an 

 old-fashioned waiting race on Craigmillar. 



But I must not start writing about jockeys or I shall 

 really begin to enlarge on the "spacious" days of 

 Fred Archer and others, when the flag was in their 

 control and gate starting had not been seen above the 

 horizon. 



Among the trainers of whom I am writing, Felix 

 Leach is almost too young, and yet he is no chicken, 

 though I have known him since he was one, in his 

 early days with Mathew Dawson, when they trained 

 Ladas and Sir Visto ; and since then, in Persimmon's 

 days, with Richard Marsh. 



That Felix Leach should be collected so to speak 

 in my memories is certain, for apart from training horses 

 he has sporting instincts all round, and his terriers long 

 ago gained great fame Newmarket Cackler in par- 

 ticular. That leads to a curious story, for a good many 

 years ago there was a dog show at Lingfield, and I 

 was asked to judge the fox-terriers, having never done 

 such a thing for over twenty-five years. I got on all 

 right with the smooth ones, but in my days there 

 were very few wire-haired ones, and those had straight 

 hair. 



I saw dogs in the wire-haired class who had crinkly 

 hair and did not fancy them, but others with straight 

 hair were not good dogs in themselves. A dog of 

 obviously great character and conformation kept being 



