1 66 MR. PARKER. 



Sir Frederick Johnstone himself, at the last 

 moment, came to me and said : 

 ' William, is the mare all right ?' 

 ' Yes, Sir Frederick,' I replied ; and he went 

 straight a^ain to the rino- and backed her for more 

 money. After the race he came to me, and, looking 

 at the mare, said he could not think how so much 

 fault could be found with her condition, as he thought 

 he never saw her looking better. And so did everyone 

 else then ; but, before the race, his friends and the 

 busy bodies had told him that she looked wretched, 

 and was overdone. In fact, they discovered that she 

 had had a tremendous gallop, two miles and a half, 

 the day before, with Comet, a horse that could never 

 get over a mile in his life. It turned out all very 

 well, as she won ; but what would they all have 

 thought if she had been beat ? and what kind things 

 would they not have said of me ? 



Before concluding my account of Joe Miller s per- 

 formances, I may perhaps relate how he went to 

 Chester, and what befell him on his return journey 

 home. After taking his gallop at four a.m., he came 

 back to the stable, was done and done up, and, at 

 eleven o'clock, entered his van (a double one), and 

 started for Cheltenham, where he arrived in the 

 evening, and slept the night. ' He reached Chester in 

 the afternoon on Tuesday, and cantered over the 

 course after the races were over that day. He 

 returned home by rail, and though the van had 



