MR FRANCIS V^ILLIERS. 261 



Committee on Gaming in 1844, Mr Francis 

 Villiers was accustomed to put many questions 

 to the jockeys in whom he reposed confidence, 

 and especially to Jem Kobinson and Frank Butler, 

 and to pay the greatest attention to what they 

 told him. Admiral Rous's avowed opinion was, 

 that any one who followed the advice of his jockey 

 would be ruined ; and in this case his warning 

 words were prophetically correct. I have already 

 stated what Frank Butler reported about the 

 comparative merits of Surplice and Loadstone, 

 after riding the latter at Goodwood. A few 

 months later Mr Villiers brougfht Robinson down 

 to Goodwood to ride Surplice and Loadstone in 

 their gallops, and, as will be seen presently, his 

 verdict was the same as that of Frank Butler. Yet 

 it would be impossible to conceive two finer jockeys 

 than Robinson and Butler ; and the latter was, as a 

 rule, a very excellent judge of racing, and especially 

 so, as he himself expressed it, of " a horse which 

 he had once had between his thighs." In what 

 scrapes Mr Villiers, and, in a lesser degree. Colonel 

 Anson (who was more adroit than his obstinate 

 and self-opinionated colleague), were entangled by 

 following the advice of Robinson and Butler will 

 be shown directly. 



Colonel Anson and Mr Villiers had (again by 

 Frank Butler's advice) given 3000 guineas — then 

 considered to be a very big figure — for Blaze, a 

 beautiful dark chestnut L'ish colt, by Launcelot 



