Gentlemen Riders 



jump. Not long afterwards I was trying my very best to 

 overcome this failing in a field adjoining the highroad, 

 and was just beginning to give it up in despair, when an 

 employe in a circus which was passing at the moment, who 

 had been looking on with much interest, thus addressed me, 

 'Master,' said he, 'let me give you an "'int": take your 

 horse back to his stable and don't give him a drop o' water 

 for three days, and then stand with a bucketful t'other side 

 of a fallen tree, and you mark my words ! he won't be many 

 minutes afore he's over after it.' 



" Never was a sounder piece of advice, as it turned out, 

 for at the end of the allotted number of days, not only did 

 the thirsty Ben Nevis hop over the fallen tree selected for 

 the purpose, like lightning, the minute he caught sight of the 

 bucket containing the mountain dew, but he was never 

 known afterwards to turn his head away from a fence. I 

 have tried the same plan since, with bad-tempered horses in 

 the stable, and it has invariably succeeded, the effect being 

 to make them fond of the man that gave them the water." 



"With a horse called May Boy, belonging to Mr. Lees," 

 goes on the Colonel, " I once had a somewhat similar ex- 

 perience. No one could get him round a corner, and noticing 

 he always bolted to the left, I offered to ride him at Bangor in 

 the Red Coat race. He was entered in another race, but as I 

 only wanted to ride in the race just mentioned, I declined the 

 mount, and some one else was put up. 



"The horse only went three fences and then bolted, as 

 usual. Then came my turn in the Red Coat race. The 

 moment he tried his favourite turn to the left, I was ready 

 for him with my whip in that hand, and keeping him straight, 

 won handsomely." 



In the Colonel's colours, Ben Nevis won a match at Ealing, 



i68 



