A Sporting Sketch.

Hastings Standard, Issue 358, 28 June 1897, Page 4

A Sporting Sketch.

v THE THICK OF THE NINE HALF _ CROWNS. This little sketch eoniains three characters; but three characters as widely different as tue poles. For myself as narrator no description is necessary. I wrote myself down a lia but no! let me be merciful, call me a spinner of yarns. In order to qualify as a spinner I have to fall back upon personal experiences. Some years ago, way back in the bush of New South Wales I had the disagreeable luck to be connected with a country racing stable presided over by one Kizbaum, a crawling sort of reptile of nondescript extraction whom nobody liked and most honest men hated. He had a vile spirit, and was a thorough cur. But through servile cringing and lick-spittling he had wormed his way into the good graces of one or two squatters, and after bleeding them with intense cunning, and feathering his own nest with an admirable foresight aud deplorable dishonesty, he started in business on his own account. When I had the misfortune to come across this sample of all that was low and degrading in turf chichanery and crooked tactics, I was engaged to ride for Hasher, the overseer of Jumlong. Of course as a gentleman rider. For out back there are more picnic race meetings for amateur riders than public meetings for professionals. And the amateur riders who turned out at these meetings were not to be scoffed at either. For I had such men as the Brewers, Frews, Coxes and Watsons to ride against, and their names to the present day can be seen in the winning lists of some of the biggest races in the colonies. I was an Englishman with a certificate from an Irish Jockey Club and an English Turf Club, but Kizbaum never fancied me. Nevertheless I won a few races for Hasher in spite of his trainer's candid opinion that I was " No good !" Tie said I was loose in my seat and knocked the horses about, and that over fences I preferred a seat on the ears or tail of a horse rather than on the place where man had ordained that a rider should stick, I took a dislike to him from the first. I have always hated a crawler and a cur, and I suppose I always will. But his opinions wore slanderous nevertheless, for in those days there were few men who coulu sit a jump cleaner than the yarn spinner; and as to sitting still, pshaw ! Fred Archer taught me that when I was barely fourteen. « But Kizbaum hated me because I would never ride a " stiff-un," and the scoundrel could make nothing dishonestly when I. rode a horse trained by him. He was always uncivil to me, and I always treated him with contempt and scorn. One day there arrived at Jumlong an English colonial experience man. He had come to learn " wool " before starting on his own capital. Flasher got a hundred a year for two years for showing the Johnnie how to squat. There were half a dozen similar men at Jumlong getting experience, and Flasher was doing right well with his pupils. Dawson was the name of the new man and he was put into my barrack, which had t-.vo bunks. Wo soon chummed up and became great friends after our first night's "confab." He told me he had been a riding master at the Military training school in Connaught, that a girl had ruined him and his people had sent him out. I asked him if he could ride. "Anything with hair on," he replied. Had he tried a good buck jumper I asked. " Yes, half a dozen in Sydney, and none could sling hmi," Then he showed me Press notices of race riding, hunting, and trick riding. I was satisfied. In the profound depths of my unfathomable brain I had already formulated a scheme for the taking down of my arch-enemy Kizbaum. Before morning we had it ail arranged. Next day Flasher asked Dawson if he'd ever been on a horse. Dawson simply answered " Yes." When further questioned if he thought he could stick on he replied that he would try. He tried. The premeditated result eventuated, and Dawson, after being slung as high as a kite, landed in a sitting posture in the sand ring, minu3 the cigarette he'd been smoking when he got on ; though the station hands noticed amid their loud guffaws that his eye-glass still adorned his left eye. He was given a quiet horse. The next day we went down to Kizbaum's stables, and I put some of the fencers over the sticks. Dawson evinced a great inclination to try himself, and I gave him a leg up on old Cantineer, my own hunter, as safe and steady a jumper as ever stood on four legs. Dawson's performance was little short of the marvellous. 1 never in all the varied course of a very lengthy and experienced career saw a man go so near to falling off without actually doing so. Of course Kizbaum was in raptures. His undisguised and malicious comments about" amateur riders" were both damnably profane and disgustingly galling. They were intended for our ears, and they reached them. " Ah ! who the dayvil is this ah—fellah !" said Dawson to me. "Kizbaum, Flasher's trainer," I replied. " Ah ! got any money ?" drawled Dawson, fixing Kizbaum. " Much as you, I suppose," whined the crawler. Dawson pulled out his portmonnaire. "I'll bet you £SO you h\veu't got a. horse that can throw me o t at any of those jumps," he said. " \Vagcr," said Kiitr.um. "Bring out Lightning Flash," be said to a stable lad, '• Fufc up yer stuff baforo

yer start, yer might be dead in five minntcs i" to Dawson. " I might; tbpre you are." Damson handed me five ton pound ;s s. and in ten minv.trs be v;as on L:ght.> iug Flrt.'h and over nil the jumps on trio cour<c. lit- stuck on somehow. flash was a brute thai bucked clean over the fences, and some-times he fairly landed on top of one and then stood on his nose on the other side. Twice Dawson was on his tail, and once fair and square between his ears, and he landed over the last jump clinging round the mare's neck for dear life. But he did not come off. Kizbaum was' disgusted. " Yer a mighty strong sticker, but you'll fall some day. You sit too loose," he snarled sneeringly. " Bet you a level hundred I ride the horse all round with my watch under my seat on the saddle. If I drop it you can have both the watch and the hundred," drawled Dawson. " I'll take you," growled Kizbaum. " Off you go." "No sooner said than done," said Dawson, and placing his watch under him he was off. Though he went through some fearful gymnastics with his legs and arms he got round safely and returned with the watch under him exactly where he had placed it. " You Colonials ah think you are the only fellows in this world who can ride. Ah, big mistake," drawled Dawson. "You are only scrubbers compared to the Mexicans. Ah ! I'll do one cf their tricks for your edification. You want educating, you are ,10 damnably ignorant. Here are nine half-crowns. You can place one under my seat, ofte under each toe between the sole of my boot and the iron, one between each knee and the saddle flap, and one between each elbow and my sides, and one under each armpit, and I'll bet you a level hundred I go over that big log fence there on this brute without dropping one of them !" Kizbaum thought he had got a chance to get his money back, and he accepted after some consideration. I never saw anything finer in my life ! The brute bucked nearly six feet into the air over the big .log fence and landed with a " plant" that must have made every bone in his body rattle again. But Dawson sat like a Centaur, the perfection of military grace. Body as straight as a gun barrel, elbows square, knuckles up, heels down and toes turned in. It was a revelation. Then he mounted Carbineer and how he did open Kizbaum's eyes. Firstly he agreed to drop any particular coin while going over a fence and in turn he loosed the two at his knees, then from under his arms, then from his toes and finally from his seat. It was simply magical. He stuck a half crown in each eve, glued another between his under lip and his chin, another he pressed on his neck with his chin, and he had a collection of about 30 stuck from his ankles upward to his seat, and from his elbows to his armpits. And over he went without dropping one. "My Gawd!" whined Kizbaum, " It's a plant. They've rung in a circus rider on me ! " " Ta-ta," drawled Dawson as we rode away with Kizbaum's money. "Bye, bye Gertie. I don't think you'll ever forget Dick Dawson and the trick of the nine half crowns." " He never did. Go to Jumlong and you'll still hear the our whining about the swindle as he calls it. Was it ? F. D'A. C. DeL.