32 SPORTING STORIES 



Tonans ! wasn't his father in a rage when he heard of it, 

 and didn't he just come down upon that saddler, and waled 

 him with the buckle-end of one of his own two-inch straps 

 till the victim was black and blue, for which the old man 

 had to pay ten pounds afterwards to square the matter ! 

 But John went on and prospered. He had a genius for 

 figures, in fact, and would have made a splendid Chancellor 

 of the Exchequer. 



John Jackson's connection with the Turf dated from 

 Flying Dutchman's year. The Dutchman was a gold- 

 mine to him, and at the close of 1849 he found himself 

 with ;^ 1 0,000 to his credit at the bank. He was early 

 entrusted with the commissions of the Middleham and 

 Richmond trainers, and his reputation as a " safe man " 

 was speedily established. It was Jackson's rule always to 

 stand on good horses, and in the long run it paid him. 

 His biggest success was with Ellington for the Derby of 

 1856, when he cleared upwards of ;^40,000. His partiality 

 for Lord Glasgow's colours was a hobby for which he 

 sometimes had to pay dearly ; but General Peel's victory 

 in the Two Thousand made up for many disappointments, 

 and I suppose no one who saw him on the Derby Day of 

 1864 will ever forget his ecstasy of delight when he saw 

 Blair Athol and General Peel coming in alone at the finish 

 of the great race. He won i^20,ooo on Blair Athol, but 

 would have netted double that amount on General Peel. 

 Then he purchased the estate of Fairfield for a large sum 

 from Mr Henry Thomson, and went in as hotly for breeding 

 as for betting. 



The worst, perhaps the only serious, "facer" he ever 

 received was in Lord Lyon's year. Up to that lucky 

 season Jackson had had an almost uninterrupted run of 

 luck, and, despite his lavish expenditure, was worth upwards 

 of i^70,ooo. A man of restless energy and excitable 

 temperament, Jackson was never happy unless he was 

 engaged in some kind of a contest — political or sporting, 

 it was all the same to him. With the Bedale and Sir 

 Charles Slingsby's hounds he was a hard rider, and one 

 year a "pounding-match" for i^ 1000 a side was arranged 

 between him and Sir Frederick Johnstone — in other words, 



