Mr. C. J. Cunningham 



Why Not's next appearance was in 1893, when ridden by- 

 Arthur Nightingall, and carrying 12 st. 7 lbs., he finished a bad 

 third to Cloister. 



The following year, carrying 11 st. 13 lbs., and ridden by 

 the same jockey, Why Not won outright — this being his fifth 

 attempt; and the year after that, carrying 12 st., and ridden 

 by Mr. C. Guy Fenwick, he finished fifth to Wild Man of 

 Borneo. 



In 1896 Why Not made his seventh and last appearance 

 in the Grand National, when, ridden by Arthur Nightingall, 

 and carrying 1 1 st. 5 lbs., he again finished fifth. 



Why Not was a very little horse, and it was said at the 

 time — and possibly with some truth — that Mr. Cunningham 

 being long in the leg, caught his feet in the fences when jump- 

 ing them, and that this fact had something to do with his 

 failures when riding him in the Liverpool. 



But if unlucky at Aintree, the same cannot be said with 

 regard to races of the hunter class, for here Charlie Cunning- 

 ham was simply invincible, especially in the north. 



The fact was that his weight being prohibitive to riding 

 much in handicaps, he (as his friend Maunsell Richardson warned 

 him would be the case) was not so much at home when riding 

 against a large field mainly composed of professional jockeys, 

 all trying for the best place at a fence, as he would do in Hunt 

 Races, where there is more room, smaller fields, and conse- 

 quently more time to look about you. 



The only son of the late Mr. Alexander Cunningham, the 

 subject of this sketch was born at Morebattle Tofts, on the 

 very edge of the fatal field of Flodden, on December 21, 1849, 

 and was descended from a family of great antiquity and 

 historical importance, which sprang from the Ayrshire house 

 of that name, sundry members of which settled in the Border 



395 



