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DONOGHUES DONKEY RIDE Leading English Eiders First Ride in Public Was a Thriller Emulates Circus Clown by Silting with Ills IllsFace Face Toward Animals Tall and Vlns Vlnsthe the Purse of Silver Stephen Donoghue gives the following ac count of his first ride in public in the series of reminiscences he is writing for the London Sunday Express We had a tremendous number of fairs and shows held in Warrington and all the big circus companies paid us periodical visits At all these shows and sports competitions were held nightly and I was very fond of entering for them whenever I could as in addition to the sport there were generally little prizes to be gained and I was un ¬ usually lucky in getting my share of these theseMy My first ride in public was rather an event eventOmys Omys Circus was visiting the town satying a whole week and I spent every spare moment I could get there Claud Omy himself was a splendid roughrider and I learned long afterward that he had noticed my constant attendance at the circus and the intense keenness of the interest I showed in it all and he approached my father and suggested that I should be handed over to him and trained for the life in the circus circusMy My stern parent flatly refused to hear of it and I was not even told of the proposal I certainly fear I should have gone off one fine morning with the circus if I had known what Claud Omy had suggested suggestedTHICK THICK HOUSES AND PONIES PONIESThe The special features of the show were the wonderfully trained trick horses and ponies poniesAH AH this of course most particularly ap ¬ pealed to me There was a very clever donkey too and a purse of silver was of ¬ fered as the prize to any one who could ride him three times round the ring or who should make the best attempt to do so Nu ¬ merous people tried every evening to ride the donkey and win the prize all sorts of folk would have a sporting effort at it roughriders too people who fancied them ¬ selves not a little at riding and most of the youth of Warrington must have had a try at one time or another anotherBut But the donkey treated all comers alike at the first attempt to mount him he lashed out in every direction and where he couldnt kick he bit And if any one did succeed in getting on his back he would even roll on the ground to get the unhappy rider off causing roars of laughter at every perform ¬ ance anceThen Then the clown would go along and jump on the donkeys hack his face to its tail even and ride merrily round the ring as many times as he chose choseHOW HOW HE SUCCEEDED SUCCEEDEDI I did succeed one evening in getting onto the animals back and riding him halfway round but the donkey then decided that that was quite far enough for me and hey presto up went his heels in the air and over his head I went to measure my length once more in the sawdust sawdustStill Still I had made the best attempt of any one so far that week and it looked as though the purse of silver would be mine when the prizes wtre awarded on the Friday night But my ambition was far from satisfied and I thought to myself Stephen there must be some way of rid ¬ ing that donkey the clown does it itAnd And all at once it flashed across my mind what to do and the next time the donkey came round I leaped on his back my face to his tail as 1 had seen the clown do I clasped my arms around his flanks and away went the donkey at full speed to roars of laughter and shouts of applause not three but thirty times round the ring as the clown was too helpless himself with laughter to wave the whip at the animal in the signal to stop stopAnd And so I received the purse of silver which contained 2s Gd about CO cents in threepenny bits and I left the circus that night feeling myself quite a hero and also feeling richer 1 really believe than I have ever felt since
