21 



CHAPTER IL 



TRAINERS AND JOCKEYS. 



" There he sat, and, as I thought, expounding the law and the prophets, 

 until, on drawing a little nearer, I found he was only expatiating 

 on the merits of a brown horse. " — Bracebridge Hall. 



AS a trainer and judge of the horse, John Hut- 

 chinson, the breeder of Hambletonian, held the 

 very highest place among his brother Yorkshiremen 

 in the eighteenth century. His first venture on Miss 

 Western for '' The Guineas" at Hambleton, when he 

 was only fifteen, included every halfpenny he pos- 

 sessed in the world ; and when he had led his chest- 

 nut charge home, and counted and jingled his win- 

 nings in his hat for minutes, he tossed the whole of it 

 on to the corn-bin, and exclaimed — " There, thank 

 God I shall never want money again !" Early betting 

 success is happily a reed, which pierces a young man's 

 hand, if he leans against it ; but in this case the ejacu- 

 lation proved prophetic, and when he died at three 

 score and ten, in the November of 1806, he left a 

 very large fortune behind him. Lord Grosvenor and 

 Mr. Peregrine Wentworth were his earliest employers, 

 and his own best horses were trained on Langton 

 Wold, except during three of the summer months, 

 when they changed the venue to Hambleton. Among 

 the other well-known Northern trainers of the period, 

 were Isaac Cape, of Tupgill ; Hoyle, of Ashgill ; 

 Christopher Jackson, the trainer of Matchem, and 

 John Pratt of Askrigg's horses ; Scaife, who played 

 the same good part by the Rockingham and Fitz- 



