TOD SLOAN 



After the race Baron Grenier said to Mr Harry Van 

 der Poole, " Sloan wants his licence, doesn't he ? " 

 and took it out of his pocket. There it was in black 

 and white and Harry Van der Poole reached out for it, 

 but the Baron proceeded to tear it up into small pieces, 

 saying as he did so : " Oh yes ; Sloan can have it ; 

 here it is." 



I can hardly speak of the incident, and every time 

 I thought of it for a year or two afterwards a lump 

 would come into my throat at the thought of what I 

 had missed. Nothing would satisfy them but that 

 there had been something queer about the first race. 

 However I can solemnly state that no one has ever 

 been more innocent than myself or anyone connected 

 with the horse. Simply we didn't know him the first 

 time and Abelard insisted on us knowing him when he 

 ran in that Steeplechase. He won all sorts of races 

 on the flat and over jumps, and the last event he ran in 

 in Belgium he actually carried 11-4 and won. 



That last race was just a little while before the 

 Cambridgeshire. It will be remembered that in that 

 race he had the light weight of 6-9. He was sent over 

 to Newmarket to a stable where the trainer owning the 

 establishment did his very best, giving him one of the 

 finest boxes in the place ; but Abelard was a horse of 

 peculiar temperament and character. He loved soli- 

 tude and at home I would always have him in the 

 quietest part of the yard. As it happened, at New- 

 market, although his quarters were so good, there was 

 a noise outside his box with the lads coming and going, 

 rattling buckets and so on. Nothing was better 

 calculated to upset this sensitive horse. When I 

 arrived in Newmarket on the day of the race two or 

 three of us went out to see him, and I was rather 

 shocked at his appearance, for he had lost nearly fifty 



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