28 The Post and the Paddock. 



Occasionally trainers take a whim into their heads 

 not to let the public see their horses gallop, and 

 bring them out at most uncouth hours. Two Derby- 

 horses at Newmarket, and two in the provinces, have 

 been trained on this principle during the last few years, 

 and no good has come of it. The system is, in fact, 

 as the Scotch say, " no canny," and the old trainers 

 shake their heads ominously when they hear of it. 



There was a good deal of crossing and unfair work 

 among the inferior jockeys in old times, which would 

 be more heavily noticed now, and in fact it was often 

 thought rather a good joke than otherwise. Captain 

 O'Kelly, whose definition of ''the black-legged fra- 

 ternity " took such a very sweeping range, expressed 

 his sentiments on the point at the Abingdon race 

 ordinary (1775), when the terms of a 300 guineas 

 match were being adjusted, and he was requested to 

 stand half. *' No," he roared ; " but if the match had 

 been made cross and jostle, as I proposed, I would 

 have stood all the money ; and by the powers, I'd 

 have brought a spalpeen from Newmarket, no higher 

 than a twopenny loaf, that should have driven his 

 lordship's horse into the furzes, and kept him there for 

 three weeks." Some odd scenes of this kind came off 

 on the race-courses of Yorkshire, whose calendar of 

 native jockeys begins with the Heseltines, William 

 and Robert. This pair flourished in the saddle nearly 

 a hundred years before their descendants, "Lanty" 

 (who never recovered The Shadow's defeat at Croxton 

 Park), and his nephew " Bob," who was clever and 

 dodgy as ever in his last race (185 1) with Lord Card- 

 ross, were enrolled among the Hambletonians. Samuel 

 Jefferson and Matchem Timms, the rider of Buck- 

 hunter, were then great rivals ; and Fields, Rose, 

 Garnett, Charles Dawson, Cade, John Singleton, and 

 three other Singletons, Thomas Jackson, Kirton, and 

 the one-eyed Leonard Jewison, succeeded. The latter, 

 who had a very long awkv/ard seat, had more songs 



