Dick Christians Lecture. 365 



him the next week. The hurdles were four-feet-ten 

 there — that was the height on them ; tied together ; 

 pegged together ; eighteen inches in the ground, and 

 tied with hay-bands. This 'ere True Blue was en- 

 tered again, and he'd still got all the better of the 

 weights ; so I says to Barker, " You and I must 

 stand in 5/. ; one of us must win, bar accidents ; my 

 horse can't wait, he must go ; you keep back, and I'll 

 run 'em all out but you." I don't know what took the 

 man, but he jumped the first set of hurdles before me, 

 and down he comes all of a heap. I almost threw 

 myself off to get clear of him, and I just missed his 

 head. He fell exactly plump before me. There was 

 a grey horse of Spriggs's in the race ; he went too fast 

 for me. I tackled him pretty well,- though, the second 

 heat, and he only beat me half a head that time : he 

 was a queer horse, this black. It would be some time 

 after this, Captain Euston — he'll be Lord Euston 

 now — sent me a message that I was to come to him. 

 " I can't manage the black," he says, " and my men 

 can't ; you must come and try." Well, I tried to 

 make him back ; two men helped me, one on each 

 side. Why ! you might just as well pull at a chim- 

 ney-piece. So I told them to get a stick and tap 

 his knees, and he began to move then. I could 

 ride him afterwards with one hand. Then he comes 

 to Melton for sale, and Mr. Gilmour bought him. 

 What fun I've had with horses in my day ! I 

 could fairly live in the air on top of a fence. All 

 these things I don't care who they go before, no one 

 can say they ain't true. Lord Plymouth bought 

 Assheton off Mr. Osbaldeston ; you must go up in 

 the morning and see that picture of him at Mr. Fer- 

 neley's : he was one of the hardest-going little horses I 

 ever saw — nothing tired him. Mr. Haycock, he was 

 the hardest rider of his day; no fence ever turned him: 

 he over-did it. 



Now there's Lord Scarboro'.. Mr. Lumlev that was. 



