REMARKABLE RACING DREAMS 373 



thirty shillings — upon " the boy in yellow," and pocketed 

 sixty yellow boys for his pluck. It was the making of 

 him ; he bought a new horse and cart, and christened the 

 former " Yellow Boy," while Sal, you may be sure, did not 

 forget to exult about her dream. 



My next Doncastrian anecdote is not exactly a dream 

 story, though its hero was a sleeping man ; it belongs rather 

 to that class of superstition which the Romans included 

 under divination — the foreshadowing of coming events by 

 some chance incident or stray word. A sporting man of my 

 acquaintance was travelling into Scotland by the " Flying 

 Scotchman," and, having fallen asleep, was awakened by 

 the guard shouting, "Doncaster ! — Doncaster!" 



" Eh, by Jove ! " he cried, starting up and rubbing his 

 eyes ; " you don't say so ; has Merry's horse, then, really 

 won ? " 



The guard was so struck by the words that he related 

 them to several people. " I should take it as a tip," sug- 

 gested one. He caught at the idea, put half a sovereign 

 on the horse, and made twenty. 



But not even yet have I finished with this wonderful 

 Doncaster and his lucky omens. A commercial traveller 

 named Ramsden, nephew of a well-known trainer, though 

 he had a great taste for racing, never staked a farthing 

 upon any other event than the Derby, but regularly put his 

 fiver upon his fancy for the Blue Riband. It so happened, 

 however, in the contrariety of things in general, that he 

 was never able to pay a visit to the Downs on the great 

 day, as his Dublin journey was always due that week. His 

 manner of selecting his horse was singularly original : he 

 never took a tip, never allowed his judgment to be 

 influenced, as far as putting on his money went, by any 

 sporting " organ " ; he appealed purely and simply to blind 

 chance, in this manner : he wrote out the names of all the 

 horses that ran, each upon a separate slip of paper, rolled 

 each up into a little pellet, then, taking the lot up in his 

 hand, cast them with as much force as he was able against 

 the wall of his room, and backed the horse that rebounded 

 farthest. Though the experiment had not been successful 

 on the whole, it was eminently so for the Derby of 1873, 



