158 The Life of Fred Archer 
and I said I supposed Archer would ride Peter. ' No,' said 
James McGeorge, ' Wood rides him ; Archer will ride Valour for 
Captain Machell.' I had backed Valour in the Lincolnshire 
Handicap and was desirous of getting my money back on him, 
but as he was generally regarded as more of a miler than any- 
thing else, I did not fancy he had much chance of lasting a 
Manchester Cup. 
" However, I went to the meeting, and about the first man 
I saw in the paddock was Archer. Then I hunted up Valour 
and had a look at the horse, who seemed well enough for any- 
thing. Peter was a hot favourite, and according to Sir John 
Astley's book the genial baronet put a lot of money on him. 
' Here 25 to i Archer,' sang out a bookmaker whose lungs did 
credit to him. These were not the sort of odds a backer of 
Archer generally obtained, and it showed that the ring at all 
events did not think Valour had too much chance. Such a 
price was too tempting for me and, although I had a ' fiver ' on 
Peter and thought the race a good thing for him, I took 25 to 
I about Valour which an accommodating man laid me, smiling 
as he put the ' ready ' in his capacious pocket. 
" I shall never forget that race. It was, in my humble 
opinion, one of the best races Archer ever rode. Charles Wood 
was a jockey ready for any emergency, but on this occasion 
he was fairly outridden. Archer evidently knew the sort of 
horse he had under him, and, to use a slang term, he ' kidded ' 
Valour all the way. If Valour could for a few minutes have 
been gifted with the talking powers of that celebrated ass of 
Balaam's I fancy he would have delivered himself as follows : 
" ' I thought it was a mile race, at the furthest. Archer 
rode me at the start at a good pace, and as we neared the end 
of a mile he set me going again, and I was in for another sprint, 
which rather astonished me. I could not understand running 
two races one after the other. I won both. You see, it was 
just my distance.' 
" As I watched the race it suddenly dawned upon me what 
