lOO Silk and Scarlet, 



times when the Duke might have said to him as Mr. 

 Toots did to the Chicken, " Richard, your expressions 

 are coarse, and your meaning is obscure !" but they 

 were only parted once, for three weeks, and then his 

 Grace was the first to make it up by asking him to 

 go and see a horse sweat. At one time he used to 

 go about Newmarket with a leather case in his pocket, 

 which contained 500/. in notes. His reason for bear- 

 ing so bulky and precious a burden, was that he had 

 once been unable to cover that amount, when a 

 tempting bet was offered him in an inn, and ** I lost 

 thaf was his constant complaint to the day of his 

 death. Both his sons, Charles and Tom, were brought 

 up to the profession. Charles died in his twenty- 

 seventh year, four seasons before his father ; and Tom, 

 who was a very safe rider and a fine judge of pace, 

 won more great races in his principal patron the Duke 

 of York's life-time, than almost any jockey out. 

 WIT nvt. Clift, who died at Newmarket within a 



William Chit. . ^ r ^ /^ 1 • 



few months of the younger Goodisson, 

 was also Yorkshire-bred. He first showed himself as 

 a lad, when he was selected in his shepherd's smock 

 by a despairing Fitzwilliam tenant, who began to 

 think that he would have a loose pony at the post in 

 the sports at Wentworth Park. Eventually he suc- 

 ceeded Peirse and Jackson in the green, and a pension 

 from his lordship, for twenty years' service, formed 

 one of the three which he enjoyed till his death. 

 His cotemporaries used to speak of him as " a wild 

 uncultivated Indian." It has been handed down that 

 on one occasion he did not scruple to say to the Duke 

 of Dorset, who had employed him, and asked him 

 how he liked his horse, " Hang vie ! you see I won ; 

 t/iafs enough for ypicr As a jockey none were more 

 honest, but he punished very severely ; would race 

 with anything and everything from end to end, and in 

 fact his science was very much below what might 

 have been expected from a man in such vast practice. 



