Mr. Alexander Goodman 



at whose Grammar School in the Minster yard the youthful 

 Alec, at the age of twelve, was sent as boarder. This fact, 

 however, does not seem to have interfered with his riding 

 education, for we read in an interesting sketch of his career, 

 published during his lifetime by a relative, that his Wednesday 

 and Saturday half holidays were spent in riding any pony 

 his father might have at the breaker's in the town, and this 

 breaker would get him to ride any other pony or small 

 horse he had on his hands. 



When twenty-two years of age, Mr. Goodman com- 

 menced business on his own account, occupying a farm 

 of about 750 acres, close to his father's place, and on 

 the latter's death in 1853, returned to live at Willow Hall, 

 when he took the whole of the ] 200 acres of land, con- 

 sisting of three farms on the Duke of Bedford's Thorney 

 estate. 



For 26 years, up to 1879, when he left Willow Hall and 

 went to live at Hawton Grange, near Newark, he hunted 

 regularly with the Fitzwilliam hounds, and during that period 

 it is hard to say which had a greater reputation for fine 

 horsemanship in the field. Alec Goodman, or his life-long 

 friend, Frank Gordon. 



Hard rider though he was, and keen to a degree, no one 

 was more observant of the etiquette of the hunting field ; and 

 Tom Sebright might well observe to Mr. Fitzwilliam, " You 

 need never say anything to Mr. Goodman, he knows when 

 hounds are hunting." 



Alec Goodman was barely eighteen when, in 1840, he 

 rode his first steeplechase over a severe course at Yaxley, 

 near Peterborough, when he came in second, and that the 

 horsemanship he displayed was something out of the com- 

 mon way may be gathered from the following extract from 



135 



