Captain Hardinge William Browne 



and the Grand Military Gold Cup, 1872, run over the severe 

 Rugby course, on Colonel Byrne's horse, who, starting favourite 

 at evens, and carrying 13 St., won easily by two lengths. 



In the same year Charleville (11 st. 7 lbs.), with "The 

 Driver " in the saddle, was second for the Birmingham Grand 

 Annual, beaten only by a neck, after a tremendous set to with 

 Lord Anglesey's Corfu, ridden by Jim Adams, with such 

 celebrities as Mr. W. H. P. Jenkins (*'Mr. P. Merton"), Mr. 

 Baldwin ("The Lion "), Mr. E. P. Wilson, George Holman and 

 Joe Cannon, taking part in the race. Though defeated, it was 

 generally admitted that Captain Browne never rode a finer 

 race in his life than on this occasion. 



April of the same year saw the last of Charleville, for, 

 when running in the United Service Plate at the Royal 

 Artillery Meeting at Bromley, with "The Driver" in the saddle 

 as usual, he fell heavily on landing over a fence, and broke his 

 neck, happily without injury to his rider. "The Driver" had 

 but one mount in the Grand National, and that in 1872, when 

 Casse Tete won, on which occasion he rode the veteran Hall 

 Court, and that he was not without hopes of winning it in the 

 near future is made plain by the following note at the foot of 

 a newspaper cutting, giving an account of the race, and pasted 

 in the album he kept containing all his records : " My first 

 mount in the Liverpool. I got round — eleven horses fell." 



Now comes the sad part of the story : Captain Browne, in 

 deference to the long-expressed wish of his father, had given 

 his word that, after the April Meeting at Sandown in 1875, at 

 which he had promised to ride for a friend, he would never 

 again take part in a steeplechase. Both he and his brother 

 " The Gunner " were quartered at Aldershot at the time, and, 

 by a strange fatality, the Duke of Cambridge had selected that 

 unlucky day for an inspection of the Division in the Long 



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