Celebrities of the Past Thirty Years 143 



best that ever won a National. The Doctor, 

 when bearing the weight of seventeen years, 

 was entered for the jumping competition at 

 Oakham, and won, with Dick Shaw, the 

 steeplechase jockey, on his back ; his owner 

 electing to ride his second string, a hot- 

 headed brute that would only do his best 

 in Custance's own hands, and this one took 

 second honours. 



A great horseman was, and is, Captain 

 *' Doggy " Smith, who won the National Hunt 

 Steeplechase at Melton on Game Chicken as 

 far back as 1864. He was also successful in 

 the same race, in 1871, with Daybreak, and 

 in 1874 on Lucellum, and his last win in 

 that contest was on New Glasgow in 1880. 

 During the whole of this period he was one 

 of the very best men across Leicestershire, 

 but has now left Melton and gone to live 

 and hunt in Sussex. Captain H. Coventry, 

 who won the Liverpool on Alcibiade, was 

 another of the same sort, and few, if any, 

 better amateurs, either on the flat or across 

 country, have ever been seen in silk. 



