428 'PROMISED LAND' AND ' DULCIBELLA.' 



one he was started to make the running for, and, of 

 course, could not go fast enough to make the pace 

 good enough for him, or indeed for many others in it; 

 and the race Avas virtually run but a mile after 1 took 

 up the running, and kept the lead till near the winning- 

 post, when the other, which had always been going- 

 faster than mine, came and just beat me for speed. 



Of course, many reasons were forthcoming to show 

 why Promised Land did not win. One very cogent 

 and widely accepted, because so plausible and fair a 

 one, was that I should have won less by my horse's 

 winning the race than I did through his losing it. 

 The foundation for this was as truthful as in the case 

 of most similar assertions; inasmuch as I stood to win 

 £22,000 if he had won, and by the actual result of 

 the race I lost £100. Another grand theory was that 

 I had ridden him to death, and taken too wide a sweep 

 at the turn ; whilst others declared I had not made 

 use enough of him in the early part of the race. I 

 had to, and did, reduce myself very much to get to the 

 weight; and lots of people thought I was too weak to 

 assist the horse, or scarcely even to sit on him, and 

 that nothing but that beat him. 



I have already had to relate how a stranger on one 

 occasion took upon himself to explain to the company 

 in a railway carriage how a certain jockey — who hap- 

 pened to be one of those present, but of course un- 

 known to him — had fallen, or nearly fallen, off his 

 horse in the principal race of the day at the meeting 



