100 GOOD SPORT 



in a volume of "Covert Side Sketches/' that "No 

 man ever mounted his men better, and in buying 

 hunters, price never stopped him. . . . For a horse 

 called Shropshire, he paid six hundred, and agreed 

 to allow the former owner one hundred a year, so 

 long as the horse carried him." 



Mr. Henry Chaplin was another who had a stud 

 of magnificent hunters when at Blankney, and the 

 same authority just quoted continues : " It is needless 

 to say that Mr. Chaplin himself has always been 

 especially well mounted, as indeed was needful, as 

 he is far from a light-weight, and where hounds 

 go he goes, be the country what it may. He has, 

 perhaps, never had a better horse than the grand 

 chestnut Emperor the First, which I have seen 

 him go well on, and no wonder, as he was at one time 

 considered the best weight-carrier in England, and 

 report says : Mr. Chaplin refused a thousand guineas 

 for him. . . . Snowstorm, who could win steeple- 

 chases and get hunters, besides carrying his master 

 with hounds, has done good service in the country ; 

 and when Mr. Chaplin had him and Dalesman at 

 Blankney, no man in England could show two finer 

 hunter sires." 



A successor to Major Tempest in 1895 was found 

 in Mr. " Natty " Cockburn, who, fresh from the 

 Oxford University, where he captained the Polo, 

 entered with zest and energy on the pleasures and 

 responsibilities of mastership, to so sporting a com- 

 munity as the Blankney. Purchasing a stud of 

 good-looking hunters, about thirty-five in number, 

 of a blood-like stamp, he appointed the hunt in 

 a style befitting Leicestershire. No expense was 

 spared to ensure sport, and Mr. Cockburn held 

 ofhce until 1904, the last two seasons assisted by 

 Lord Londesborough in a joint-mastership. Of 



