CHAP. III.] ]\Ir. Osbaldestoii^s pack. 89 



There were giant chasers and giant riders in these 

 days, and the former were mostly of a more gennine and 

 hunter-like stamp than the turf-failares of modern times. 

 The names of Lottery, Vivian, Seventy-four, Grimaldi, 

 Discount, Cigar, Yellow Dwarf, the Chandler, and many 

 another hippie hero, will come home to the memory 

 of countless frosty-powed sportsmen of to-day. Great 

 horses were each and all of these, but the greatest of all 

 was Lottery. Jem Mason on Lotterj^, in a steeple-chase 

 of forty years since, was what Archer on St. Gatien or 

 Ormonde is at the present time.^ No higher compliment 

 was ever paid to a horse than when Lottery was 

 barred out of a steeple-chase, open to all England, 

 which came off at Wootton, near JSTorthampton, in 

 1840, and which was won by Cigar, ridden by Allan 

 McDonough. 



No hounds in England had gained a greater celebrity 

 than Mr. Osbaldeston's bitch-pack, one of their marked 

 features of excellence being that they never lost their 

 presence of mind when ridden over, or pressed upon by 

 an overwhelming field ; consequently their body never 

 became broken up or detached. Proverbially fast, a 

 more musical pack could scarcely be met with, which 

 would seem to militate against the theory that "" mute- 

 ness ^^ must needs accompany ^' fleetness.'" To the 

 genuine lover of hunting, there could be no greater treat 

 than to see these bitches swimming along the flat 

 between Stanford Hall and Winwick Warren, so close 

 together that the ground could scarcely be seen between 

 them. Among innumerable good runs, the ^' Squire '' 



^ Since this was penned, the famous jockey, like the author, has 

 departed this life. — Ed. 



