SOME OLD SUPPORTERS. 265 



at the tail of hounds as unconcernedly as if taking a canter 

 up a grass field.' Of course, he had hounds to himself for 

 some time. 



No harder man or better sportsman ever buckled on a 

 spur than Bill Scott, and there is no man whose name is 

 engraved more deeply on the memory of sporting Yorkshire 

 than the jockey who lived so long at Knavesmire Gate, and 

 whose record in the St. Leger has never yet been lowered. 

 The history ot his life is the history of the Turf in the 

 twenties and thirties, and until he won the St. Leger on his 

 own horse. Sir Tatton Sykes, in 1846, on which occasion he 

 rode his ninth winner in Doncaster's great race. Sir Tatton 

 Sykes was bred, trained and ridden by his owner, and he 

 narrowly missed being the first horse to win the treble 

 event ; for .Sir Tatton Sykes was only beaten a neck in the 

 Derby after having been almost left at the post, and there 

 is no doubt but that Scott was the victim of a conspiracy, 

 for he certainly did not ride with his usual judgment, and it 

 was always stated that he was drugged just as he was 

 leaving the paddock. We have the Druid's authority for 

 saying that Ben Morgan rode in something like the same 

 style over a country as Bill Scott, and no one was harder 

 than Ben. One of Scott's hunters was the famous Ainderby, 

 once the property of his friend Captain Frank Gordon of 

 the 13th, the horse on which, with the assistance of the 

 historic dog, he beat Queen of Trumps in the Scarborough 

 Stakes at Doncaster. Scott once rode and won a steeple- 

 chase match for a thousand pounds, but 1 can get no 

 particulars of it save that it came off in the neighbourhood 

 of Castle Howard. 



Equally hard and as keen a sportsman as any of them 

 was Mr. John Jackson, 'Jock of Oran ' as he was called by 

 his familiar friends. Before he came to Fairfield he was a 

 hard and very jealous rider with the Bedale, and he fully 



