46 SPORTING STORIES 



" Beggar my limbs ! " (his favourite and only expletive). 

 " What's the meaning of this blessed rig ? " 



The meaning was soon plain enough when the "self- 

 potted " Danebury nag cantered in alone, the easiest of 

 winners by half a dozen lengths. It was rich to see the 

 expression on John's face as his friends crowded round him 

 and pressed on him their profuse congratulations on his 

 unexpected success. The members of the Grafton Club 

 who had generously presented the plate were among the 

 heartiest and most effusive with their compliments on the 

 Danebury success ; but poor John soon found to his cost 

 that these expressions of congratulation were not wholly 

 disinterested, for the winner was considered bound in 

 honour to stand ten dozen of champagne to the Club and 

 pay the expenses of the police retained to keep order 

 during the meeting ! But what was this to the winner of 

 a handsome piece of plate worth a hundred guineas, to say 

 nothing of the sweepstakes and the money which so 

 shrewd a card as John must, so everyone said, have netted 

 in bets with such odds laid against his horse ! 



The veteran trainer, however, looked like Bret Harte's 

 " Truthful James " — " far, far from gay" — as the consequence 

 of his victory began gradually to dawn upon him. 

 However, there was no help for it ; " Honest John " had to 

 part with the fifteen fifties, present the Club with ten dozen 

 of champagne, and pay the police expenses of the meeting. 

 The sum total came to ;^850, a pretty stiff price to pay for 

 a hundred-guinea plate and a purse of fifty sovereigns ! 

 The gentlemen-jocks stood in about sixty pounds apiece 

 over the business, and it would probably not have improved 

 the temper of the Danebury patriarch could he have heard 

 the facetious manner in which his health was drunk that 

 evening after dinner at the Golden Lion. 



Long before this, however, when " Honest John " was a 

 youngster, he and his brother Sam, who thought themselves 

 as sharp a pair of youths as any to be found in England, 

 met more than their match among the yokels whom they 

 despised. Every year, in the month of August, pony races 

 were held in the New Forest, which, in the opinion of the 

 natives, were far superior to the Derby. Most of the 



