Gentlemen Riders 



The race that year had no more than ;^ioo added to the 

 sweepstakes of ten sovereigns each, and Fidget (12 st. 7 lbs.), 

 who simply cantered away from the other nine competitors, 

 won as she liked, by a field; Mr. Handley's Proceed (13 St.) 

 (7 lbs. extra), who started at 3 to i, and was the mount of 

 Mr. Thomas, being second, and Green Drake (12 st. 7 lbs.), 

 ridden by Captain Holyoake, third. 



Mr. Skipworth, being only fifty-five years of age at the 

 time, died on Monday, the 7th of December, 1897, when out 

 hunting with the Holderness Hounds. His horse fell with 

 him on the road, and when assistance arrived life was found to 

 be extinct. 



THE EARL OF STRATHMORE 



Immortalized in Herring's celebrated picture entitled, "Steeple- 

 chase Cracks," the engraving from which is, without doubt, 

 the best known and most popular production of the kind that 

 has ever appeared, Lord Strathmore and Switcher, who with 

 Jim Mason and Lottery divide the honours between them, are 

 just as familiar to the sportsman of the present age as they 

 were in the flesh to racegoers of a past generation. 



That they both should be depicted by Mr. Herring in close 

 proximity to each other is quite in the order of things, for, as 

 was well known at the time, and he himself was the first to 

 acknowledge, it was in a great measure due to the professional's 

 indefatigable coaching that Lord Strathmore was enabled to 

 take the prominent place he undoubtedly did in the ranks of the 

 cross-country riders of his day. Heart and soul in the sport, 



70 



