Gentlemen Riders 



certificates for the horses running, omitting the names of 

 Unity and another, but had added a postscript that these 

 horses were also duly qualified ; the technical objection being 

 that he had omitted to initial the postscript. It was a remark- 

 able proceeding, as Unity was little more than a pony, and 

 a very genuine lady's hunter. A still stranger thing happened 

 at this Kilkenny Meeting. During one of the races, the open 

 ditch built up with dry gorse was fired either by accident or 

 design, and the horses approached it in a sheet of flame. 



'* Two of the riders boldly jumped into the middle of the 

 flame, getting through with falls and considerably scorched, 

 and one of them pluckily remounting, won the race. I have 

 further cause to remember the meeting, as my racing breeches, 

 etc., were purloined. 



" I note," he continues, "in the 'Sportsman's' list of cross- 

 country riders in 1896, Captain Yardley had 30 mounts and 

 5 wins. This is not the good average abroad, but the 

 majority of the mounts were on rank outsiders. 



** I commenced 1897 by winning a three-mile steeplechase 

 at Plumpton on a horse called Victor, only half fit. A 

 grand horse that had won many big races on the Continent, 

 he was brought back to England, and bought by my friend 

 General Beresford to win the National. He got into the 

 race with a nice weight, and the preliminary gallop at 

 Plumpton, in which the horse never put a foot wrong, filled us 

 with great confidence. His next outing, when pretty fit, was a 

 steeplechase at Kempton, for which he started a hot favourite, 

 and which we quite expected him to win easily, and become 

 first favourite for the National. However, to my utter 

 astonishment, he never rose at all at the open ditch, and came 

 an awful cropper. A similar fate befell us in a steeplechase 

 at Sandown and in the Nottingham Handicap Steeplechase, at 



