THE GALWAY HOUNDS. I3I 



for years used to ride in the principal races in this 

 country ; he generally had a few chasers in his stable, 

 and always a rare stud of hunters. A better display 

 of horsemanship never was witnessed than his on 

 Dan O'Connell, when he rode him for the Liverpool 

 Grand National — I forget in what year — the horse 

 then belonged to * Sporting Mick Yourrell,' as he was 

 generally called ; he bolted when going well not far 

 from home. Another of the many wonderful proofs 

 afforded by Mr. John Dennis of his prowess in the 

 pig-skin was his marvellous feat, accomplished thirty 

 years ago, when riding Fra Diavolo in a four-mile 

 steeplechase, over the Macroom Course, Roscommon 

 walls, many of them over five feet high. The horse's 

 sight had been failing for some time, and during the 

 race he lost it completely, yet he won." 



" Oh ! nonsense." 



•* It is a fact, and I can get many men who will 

 bear me out in what I say, and one of them is a 

 gentleman residing at the Curragh: but to continue my 

 story ; he had his opponents in difficulties a long way 

 from home ; he was seen to blunder over the last 

 three walls, and he actually rolled over the last one, 

 yet Mr. Dennis kept in the saddle. All who knew 

 the horse were amazed, as he never was known to 

 fall over a wall ; he won, and when he returned to 

 the enclosure it was found that the horse was stone 



BLIND. 



** At Lismacrory racecourse, near Birr, when 

 a comparatively old man, he accomplished one of his 

 memorable feats. Mr. ' Charlie' Lockwood once said 

 of him, * Jack manages a horse by Legerdemain.' I 

 suppose the description was not a pun on the deriva- 



