374 A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



York when he got thrown over the rails, picked himself up, borrowed a coat and hat, 

 raced after his competitor, who had given up the struggle, and beat him. The 

 Duke of Dorset once broke a blood-vessel in his efforts to hold in the Prince's 

 Ploughator. Every race and every match was contested as sternly by these 

 gentlemen jockeys as by any of their contemporaries who made a living out of the 

 profession, and with the transplantation of the old Bibury Club many more things 

 besides bold horsemanship were lost to that section of the English Turf which made 



its early days so brilliant. The spirit 

 of their contests survived in such men 

 as Admiral Rous, or Sir John Astley, 

 whose match with Mr. Alexander was 

 quite according to the Bibury fashion 



' , 



, <*" set when Tommy Panton raced Mr. 



Wastell, owners up, at twenty-five 



v *A 



stone each. The last part of the 



nineteenth century showed that the 



s^jL T*' . gentlemen riders of its early decades 



had not yet quite died out, for though 

 Mr. J. M. Richardson, who won the 

 Grand National two years following, 

 "retired" in 1874, a "Mr. R. Owen" 

 scored his first win at the Beaufort 

 Hunt Meeting of 1876 ; and at about 

 the same time such riders were to be 



found as Lord Melgund (now Earl of 

 S/r Tatto7i Sykes. 



Minto), Lord Marcus Beresford, Arthur 



Coventry, W. R. Brockton and Tom Price, who both affected a "crouching" attitude 

 akin to the style of Jem Robinson or even of George Fordham, which is supposed to 

 have been originated by the Americans, the brothers Beasley, G. S. Thompson, Captain 

 "Bay" Middleton, Dalbiac of the "Gunners," and other military successors to that 

 famous trio, Captain Knox, Major Tempest, and Captain Coventry, the last two of whom 

 fought out a finish in the Grand National that every one who was alive in 1865 must 

 well remember. Probably the best amateur ever seen was Mr. Baird, who rode as 

 " Mr. Abingdon " ; and in 1902 Mr. G. Thursby easily headed the amateur list at the 

 beginning of December with 15 wins out of 37 mounts, and only ten unplaced. 



