394 RACING CAREER OF SIR W. H. GREGORY. 



it would have been impossible for him to lose. 

 Bowes had a long telescope through which he 

 watched the race, and was surrounded by people 

 eager to know all that was going on. When the 

 catastrophe occurred he shut up his telescope, 

 merely remarking, ' My horse has fallen, and I 

 think Bill Scott is killed.' As matters fell out, the 

 famous Whitewall jockey got off with a broken 

 collar-bone. I well remember Bowes calling to ask 

 me to do a big- commission for him about Cother- 

 stone, another of his Derby winners. One morning, 

 when I was still in my bedroom, my servant came 

 in, announcing that Mr Bowes was below, and 

 wanted to see me. The occurrence was so unusual 

 that I made all haste to join him. As I entered 

 the room, he apologised for troubling me at that 

 unreasonably early hour, adding that he had come 

 upon business, and that his colt, Cotherstone, had 

 been highly tried, and would win the Derby, for 

 which he was then at long odds — to wit, 40 to 1. 

 He asked me to back the horse for £1000, and to 

 put on something for myself. I made one stipula- 

 tion — that there should be no other commission 

 in the market — to which he promised faithfully to 

 adhere. I returned him next day the odds of 

 £23,000 to £1000. Some of the money was shaky 

 in consequence of the liberties taken with the 

 horse by a gang of nobblers, who thought they 

 had the means of making him safe. When they 

 failed in their nefarious efforts, through the pre- 



