Gentlemen Riders 



the drug administered to her that fatal afternoon, and being 

 quite useless for racing purposes was eventually put to the 

 stud, where she threw a couple of foals ; which, however, were 

 not of much account. 



Some little while after this Count Kinsky, riding Kilworth 

 in the Great Sandown Steeplechase, got a very bad fall at the 

 open ditch without a guard-rail — known then as " The Grave," 

 in connection with which — though it was anything but a joke 

 to the principal actor — there were one or two amusing 

 incidents. The erratic Roquefort was in the race, and in 

 order to prevent him running out at the paddock, men were 

 posted at the entrance armed with whips. The cracking of 

 these drove Kilworth — a very unstable and rather shifty 

 customer — nearly mad, and sent him down the hill at a great 

 pace. With a less determined jockey on his back, Kilworth 

 would have refused the open ditches ; as it was he slipped 

 just before taking off, with the result that both went flying into 

 the ditch, with disastrous results to Prince Kinsky, who broke 

 both an arm and his nose, and literally tore all the skin off 

 his face. Colonel — now Sir Arthur Paget, pulled him out of 

 the ditch by his broken arm, "and the pain," philosophically 

 remarked the Prince in describing the incident, " soon brought 

 me round." ** And I am afraid," he added, " that I must have 

 used some strongish language in my half-conscious state, as a 

 lady told * Roddy ' Owen afterwards that she had always 

 understood that I had mastered the English language fairly 

 well, but where I could have learned such dreadful ex- 

 pressions she was at a loss to understand." 



Crowds of people of a morbid turn of mind used to walk 

 down and stare at the place where so many bad falls had taken 

 place, and the accident to Prince Kinsky coming on the top of 

 a threatened strike amongst the jockeys, the authorities at last 



376 



