A UTHOR'S horse fa UST B V CREGAN 43 



on the other side. My horse topped the coping 

 and cleared the stream beyond. Mr. Kelly, of 

 Ratoath, one of our best and oldest sportsmen then 

 living, witnessed the performance, and, to use his 

 own words, remarked, ' I could scarcely believe my 

 own eyes !' He knew the wall and what was on the 

 far side of it, and shouted to me to stop, but I did 

 not understand what he said, and luckily got over 

 in a style much more to my own astonishment, I 

 fancy, than that of my horse. 



He certainly was about the very best horse I ever 

 owned or ever knew. He was got by a horse named 

 Cregan, which was then standing at Limerick. He 

 was as quick as he was clever, and although I hunted 

 him for many years he only once gave me a fall, and 

 that was not his fault, for he pitched into a rabbit-hole 

 over a big fence. Lady Dysart, whom I had no 

 notion I was piloting, rode over us and sent us both 

 flying. 



No horse could possibly have been more perfect. 

 It mattered not what style of country he was in, 

 or whether he went fast or slow at his fences ; and 

 he was, too, a most extraordinary performer at a 

 stand. 



I one day took a fancy to a chestnut mare which I 

 saw being driven past me as wheeler in a tandem. 

 Her owner, a Mr. Brown, was, I knew, anxious to sell 

 the whole turn-out, he having been ordered to China. 

 I eventually bought the mare, and took her with me 

 to England, and rode her during that summer in the 

 Row. I gave her a few lessons over the bar at the 

 Eyre Arms, and that was the only training she had 

 ever had out of harness. Later on in the year (October, 



