44 WAYFARING NOTIONS 



the frozen grass, spongy with rime where the 

 growth was thick and like a greased slide on the 

 open patches. 



The family of Mr William Burbidge, who 

 trains just outside Chichester, have been in the 

 training interest about Sussex for many years, 

 as also up Epsom way. I recollect Mr Burbidge's 

 father at Smitham Bottom, where was and is 

 the mile on the road almost as celebrated for 

 foot-racing as any of our latter-day grounds. 

 Captain Machell ran on this mile, and all manner 

 of peds., high and low in degree ; but I was bear- 

 ing the Sussex part of Mr Burbidge, sen., in mind, 

 not the Surrey. What I was going to say was 

 this. His son was at Plumpton ; some seven 

 miles — or, perhaps, eight — away as the crow flies 

 is Telscombe, a mile from the sea cliffs, a hidden 

 hamlet very difficult to find by the uninitiated, 

 unless you accept a self-evident tip and stick to 

 the line of a telephone wire originally put up for 

 Mr Joe Gubbins when he contemplated settling 

 down a team of horses there. For him were the 

 stables occupied by the late Edwin Parr (trainer 

 of Lord Clifden) greatly enlarged and extensive 

 alterations made. There it was that the great 

 scare about Lord St Vincent's horse arose. 

 I suppose that someone really did try to nobble 

 the horse. I wonder whether he was by New- 

 minster out of The Slave ? The pedigree comes 

 to me automatically, but he won his Sellinger in 

 1863, and that is forty-one years ago — a long 

 while. The story of the nobbling, which did not 

 come off", was diabolical. According to it, some 

 villain, or villains, removed a patch of turf in the 

 gallop, scraped out the earth under it, and 

 replaced the sods over sharp, jagged flints, 



