Gentlemen Riders 



confident than ever that, if I could get the mare fit, she would 

 not only reverse that running, readily enough, but would fly 

 successfully at higher game. 



I did not run her again until the spring, when I got her 

 ready for the hunt race at Bangor, a course which I knew 

 would suit her. There were some twelve runners, including 

 two or three winners ; and she never gave them a chance, 

 winning in a canter by quite half a distance. 



At the same meeting I won the open steeplechase on 

 Emily Harris, a bay mare by the Confessor out of Diminutive, 

 beating five others. This mare was in the habit of refusing to 

 jump open water, before I purchased her at the repository at 

 Birmingham, and gave me a good deal of trouble before she 

 became trustworthy ; and, as she was only able to get two 

 miles, at a racing pace, over a country, I used her chiefly to 

 lead work. Nevertheless, she won a steeplechase, giving two 

 stone and twelve pounds to Old Oswestry — then a three-year- 

 old ; but, had the latter been properly ridden, he would readily 

 have accounted for my mare and the five others. This was my 

 first experience of Old Oswestry, and I then told his owner 

 that he ought to make a great horse ; and it was very pleasant 

 for me, some three years afterwards, to act as intermediary in 

 effecting the sale of this horse to Mr. Leigh for ;^i500, and 

 half of the first stake the horse won over ;/^500. He was not 

 long in winning this stake ; and subsequently won the big 

 steeplechase at Crewkerne, having the Grand National winner, 

 Salamander, well beaten, before the latter fell and broke 

 his back. 



To return to Express : In her race with Bridegroom, at 

 Wetherby, in the National Hunt Steeplechase of 1865, she 

 damaged her off fore-foot seriously by an over-reach (jumping 

 into the plough), which inflicted a deep contused wound, 



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