My Racing Adventures 



sideration evinced for one's feelings was pleasant 

 enough. At the perilous period named, when a 

 horse is stone-cold, one may so easily ask for 

 what one does not wish to receive and what is of 

 no service to us when delivered. Consignments 

 of trouble are best left to those who have a 

 genius for wriggling out of it at the last moment. 



A curious incident occurred at Manchester 

 which bears humorously upon this question of 

 riding orders. My mount in a hurdle race there 

 was " Cynosurus," fully " expected " ; but I was 

 beaten by a gentleman rider on a 100 to 8 chance, 

 and he gave me an amusing account of the per- 

 formance. He has a vivid imagination, so we 

 may take a little off, perhaps, for persiflage. 



" My trainer," he said, " did not come to see his 

 mare run, but he sent me a four-page letter con- 

 taining minute instructions how I was to ride 

 her. I tried to learn them by heart ; they were 

 too intricate and elaborate. I was supposed to 

 do something special and clever, if not super- 

 natural, at every corner ; and if the code had 

 been stretched as long as the course, it could not 

 have been more convincing. Yet, after all, I was 

 not so far out of my reckoning, or I could not 

 have put paid to your account with such an air 

 of —ah — distinction." 



136 



