84 My First Steeple-chaser. 



horse must have been hunted one season with the hounds, and be 

 ridden by a member of the hunt. Now, here was just the thing 

 to hand.' We had certainly the services of the best jockey. It 

 wanted full three months to the beginning of the hunting season 

 to try and bring the horse round. The risk was not great j so a 

 bargain was struck at once. The old gentleman was to take half 

 the horse, and we were to be part-owners ; share the expenses and 

 the winnings. He was to have the sole management of the affair j 

 I was only to be a sort of sleeping partner, and not to interfere in 

 the least with the training. Tom was to ride, and have a share in 

 the stakes, if he won, and we agreed to put the Vet. on at 25/. to no- 

 thing in his first race, if only he could get the horse right to the post. 



Certainly if our hunt steeple-chase was destined ever to be won 

 by a screw, it did seem as if old Dot-and-Go-One was to be the 

 lucky horse, considering the hands he had now got into. Of course 

 we were all bound to secrecy : the horse was to have a run in one 

 of the old man's meadows, and then to be brought up and got into 

 hunting condition. Although part owner, I knew no more what 

 mysterious operations that horse went through than the very coach- 

 man of whom I had bought him, but I believe both the old man 

 and the vet. had an anxious time of it. Sometimes the horse would 

 come limping out of the stable at a pace which the old man, with 

 the aid of his stick, could have beaten, down the gravel-walk j some- 

 times he seemed to go lame on one leg, sometimes on the other, 

 and sometimes all round ; at others he would come bounding out 

 of the stable as if he had never been lame in his life. Scores of 

 times did the old man declare he would give treble the value of the 

 horse if he could only discover where the lameness really did lie, 

 and many an anxious hour did he spend in watching him and think- 

 ing what a triumph it would be if he only could carry off this much- 

 coveted prize with a screw, of whose existence no one in the hunt 

 had the least idea. But, wherever the disease lay, or whatever 

 remedies were applied, the horse certainly did get better, and by the 

 middle of November he was seen at the covert-side. 



The winter passed over, and the old horse kept much about the 



