The Baker was hunted all the winter, and it would be hard to say which—he or Tom Mahon—enjoyed the season the more heartily. He was entered for several events, was put into hard training and galloped upon that most elastic of turf, the Curragh of Kildare. Subsequently he won, as a complete outsider, a big race at Punchestown, others at Lincoln and Liverpool, and within twelve months, in bets and stakes, ten thousand pounds for his grateful owners: in short, he restored their fortunes.
The Baker is now a pensioner, the Mahons having refused to part with him, even for a tempting price. He spends his summer on the bog in company with a donkey, his old companion; in winter, he occasionally appears at Meets, and goes admirably in a short run—just to show the younger performers how the thing should be done! On such occasions he is pointed out to strangers as that celebrated chaser, the Baker; but the story of the baker’s cart, and his reputed price of thirty shillings, is looked upon as an amusing fiction.
Printed in Great Britain by Ebenezer Baylis & Son, Trinity Works, Worcester.
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