But if his horses were rough, they stood up and they stayed.

And that was all he wanted: for Mat never trained anything but jumpers.

"Flat racin' for flats," was a favourite saying of his. "'Chasin' for
class."

And many of his wins have become historic; notably the Grand National in
the year of Sedan--when Merry Andrew, who had three legs and one lung,
so the story went, won for him by two lengths; and thirty years later
Cannibal's still more astounding victory in the same race, when Monkey
Brand out-jockeyed Chukkers Childers, the American crack, in one of the
most desperate set-to's in the annals of Aintree.

There is a famous caricature of Mat leading in the winner on the first
of these occasions. He looked then much as he does to-day--like
Humpty-Dumpty of the nursery ballad; but he grew always more
Humpty-Dumptyish with the years. His round red head, bald and shining,
sat like a poached egg between the enormous spread of his shoulders. His
neck, always short, grew shorter and finally disappeared; and his crisp,
pink face had the air of one who finds breathing a perpetually
increasing difficulty.

In build Mat was very short, and very broad; and his legs were so thin
that it was no wonder they were somewhat bowed beneath their load. Far
back in the Dark Ages, when his body was more on a par with his legs,
it was rumoured that Mat had himself won hunt-races.

"Then my body went on, or rayther spread out," he would tell his