News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1894-09-06
CHAPTER Y.


AS will be imagined, looked with
some anxiety for the telegram which
would give us the result of the City and
Suburban. Natty went up to see the
mare run in this her first race of i'm
portance, but ! was unable to, so many
of ours being on leave at the time.
Mats wire gave: Cork Jacket, first;
Retrenchment, second; Lady Comely,
third. Your mare ran well. " Ran
we'll, confound her! How did she run
well when she didn't even get place?
That was always their story, Mats and
Pearce's. Perhaps they would have
been less satisfied if they had had to
pay her training bill at the end of the
year. However, there was no need to
bother about that, for | had the money
in hand, and, moreover, she soon won
a small race again at Leicester and
another at Derby. This was all very
WE'LL but it would not enable me to
marry Ella. | wanted to pull off a coup
and have done with it.
1t appeared from Natty's letter that
the mare did run extremely well at Ep-
som, although had been discontented
finishing in fact close up behind the
leaders. She was very nearly first class,
Natty said, and my turn would come
before long, but | must not let her win
too many small races lest she should
attract too much attention from the
handicappers. Acting on this idea, we
ran her but few times during the
summer months when the ground was
hard, hoping to get her we'll in for some
of the autumn handicaps. So there was
no Ascot for me with Ella in the blue
and gold. But no matter. All | as
pired to ROW was the winning of some
good handicap which would bring me
couple Of thousands or SO to put in FL
las settlement.
l learned lot about racing from
| Nat-enough to see very plainly what
an awful mess | should have made of
my uncle's legacy but for his superior
knowledge. Of course knew that the
classic races, SO to speak-Derby, Oaks,
st. Leger and so on-were the great
things to win and did not understand
much about these handicaps. had
heard our fellows talking about cup
horses, handicap horses and platers,
etc., and was under the impression that
the animals which ran in handicaps
were of quite an inferior class. This,
Natty assured me, was by no means the
case; that nowadays horses of the high
est class competed in such races, and
cited Isonomy, who had made his rep
utation in them, and st. Gatien, Der
by winner, whose greatest performance
had been TO carry high weight sue
cessfully in the Cesarewitch. These he
considered the best two horses since
Blair Athol. Skittles, he said, had beat
en- lot of useful animals in her first
essay with the cracks, including Pc
dometer, her former trial nag, and it
was quite on the cards that she would
one day pull oft a good race for me.
In this hope | was to keep on running
her at tho discretion of himself and
Pearce.
Meanwhile my relations with Ella
remained in statu quo | could seldom
see her now in consequence of the &C.
ton taken by her parents, who contin-
ued to press Dakyn upon her with what
seemed to me abominably bad taste,
for, though there might be nothing
against my cousin Richard, yet girl
of Elias sense might be supposed tc
know with which of her suitors she had
the best hope of happiness, and she had
already signified her choice. Neverthe-
less it came hard on me that, while he
! was allowed free access to my lady