102 The Life of Fred Archer 
" When Archer was married there was a lot of speechifying 
and an ox roasted in the Severals. I did not have any. bu.t 
those who did said it was neither cooked nor raw, but something 
between." 
Fordham this year won one of his cunning victories 
over Archer in the Ascot Derby. He fell behind, and Archer 
fell in and took up the running upon Spinaway, who was the 
favourite. Fordham came with a rush on the inside and won 
by three-quarters of a length. 
" Lord Falmouth," says Sir George Chetwynd in his 
" Reminiscences," " refused to declare to win with Spinaway in 
the Newmarket Oaks. Archer was on Spinaway, and although 
he was not the Archer of a decade later, spectators might have 
supposed that he would have chosen the right one." Lord 
Falmouth also ran Ladylove. He told me that he and Mat 
Dawson (just before the race) disagreed about the merits of 
the two animals ; hence his letting each take her chance." 
Cheltenham, at this time, although a great steeplechasing 
centre, was without a flat-race meeting until, in 1875, one was 
established for a year or two, after which it fell through and 
has not been revived. Fred Archer attended the first, which 
was held on the racecourse which is now the cemetery. 
During this season Archer attended some of the other race 
meetings in his own West Country ; at the Worcester Summer 
Meeting he was in great form, and won four races right off the 
reel, including the principal handicap with Bassoon. 
About this time the late Mr. Cyrus Faulkner Dobell, a 
younger brother of Sydney Dobell, the poet, was living at 
Whittington Manor, and remembered Archer's early hunting 
days, when, he said, it amazed him to see the little weedy boy 
on a small pony leading the whole field, far ahead of grown 
men on hundred-guinea hunters. At the time of which we 
are writing Mr. Dobell seems to have seen a good deal of 
Archer, and said : 
" He was a very superior fellow to most jockeys, and dressed 
