Gentlemen Riders 



too — a good deal of hostile criticism in the press and elsewhere, 

 the following day. 



Merry Hampton subsequently was unplaced to Tenebreuse 

 in the Grand Prix, and was second to Kilwarlin in the St. 

 Leger, whilst he ran unsuccessfully in the City and Suburban 

 the following year. 



If apathetic where the Derby was concerned, however, 

 such was certainly not the case when it came to race-riding 

 on his own account, his passion for the pigskin amounting 

 almost to a mania. 



For horses he could ride himself he never hesitated to give 

 fancy prices, and he must thus have been more or less 

 associated with at least a dozen stables. 



Distance was no object at all on these occasions, and it 

 was no uncommon occurrence for one or more of his horses 

 to be fulfilling valuable engagements down south, whilst their 

 eccentric owner was disporting himself in a miserable thirty 

 pound hunters' plate at some obscure meeting at the other 

 end of England, to reach which he had probably chartered 

 a special train. 



Confining himself latterly entirely to the fiat, it would have 

 been odd indeed, with his amount of practice, had not " Mr. 

 Abington" arrived at more than ordinary proficiency in the 

 saddle, and it was admitted on all sides that his riding of The 

 Rejected at Bath, when that horse won the Somersetshire Stakes, 

 would have done credit to any professional jockey breathing. 



There are many, however, amongst them Mr. Gurry, his 

 trainer — who consider the best race "Mr. Abington " ever 

 rode was when he won the big hurdle race at Kempton Park 

 on Theophrastus, in 1882, just beating Arthur Nightingall. 

 It was a very heavy betting race, and " the Squire " had ^2000 

 of his own money on his mount. 



442 



