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FAMOUS HORSE FRIENDSHIP 4 Gilpin Tells of Pretty Polly and Her Equine Pal Little Missus. All Through Famous Marcs Racing Career Her Companion Traveled From Meeting to Meeting "With Her. Much has been written of the friendship of famous horses for" other animals in their stables, but trainer P. P. Gilpin, in his stcry of Pretty Polly, adds the following interesting example to the record : The risks that are run by people who back horses a Ions time before a race was brought home to me by Pretty Polly in her three-year-old year. She opened her season by winning the One Thousand at odds of 4 to 1 on. I had watched her carefully on the morning ot that race, and satisfied myself that she was fit and well enough to win. As I was returning from work I met at the gate Charles Hibbert, the celebrated Nottingham bookmaker, who asked me how the mare was doing. I told him that she was well and that I expected her to win. For once breaking away from my rule not to lay odds on I asked him to put me ,000 on the mare. Immediately I had left him I went back into the yard and saw what came within a hairs breadth of being the end of Pretty Polly. HAMMERKOPS SHOW OF TEMPER. One of the mares in my stable at that time was named Hammerkop, quite a famous animal in her day, and among the quietest and best-tempered horses I have ever trained. Pretty Polly was following her into the stable yard when for some inexplicable reason old Hammerkop backed suddenly and kicked out viciously, only just missing her. There was not, sufficient space to insert a penny between Hammerkops hoofs and one of Pretty Pollys hocks. Which is only another proof of the extraordinary risks one has to run even when one takes the greatest possible care to steer clear of all accidents. The fact is, one is never safe till they are at the post, and not always then. Fortunately this sudden onslaught did not upset Pretty Polly in the least. She returned to her stable, and came out later to trot away comfortably with the One Thousand. Pretty Polly was even-tempered and only with one horse did she behave contrariwise. This horse, for which Pretty Polly showed a great aversion, was, strangely enough, her own sister, a mare named Adula. Probably Pretty Polly resented the color scheme of Adula, for she was a queerly marked animal a bright chestnut with lots of white markings about her body, face and legs. From the first time she saw her Pretty Polly showed a great antipathy to her. On every possible occasion she would charge at her with open mouth, and we had to be careful to keep them always apart. PRETTY POLLYS FRIENDS. Though she had one natural enemy. Pretty Polly had many friends, from which there stands out one diminutive mare of mine called Little Missus. This little mare, like Pretty Polly, had a lucky escape on one memorable occasion. She was in a stall next to an Arab horse, given me by Gerald Paget, a charming man, and greatly sought after by everyone. He was one of the most lovable men I ever met. This horse had served him well during the South African war, and for a time served me as a hack ; but I had to get rid of him because of his incurable habit of neighing. He would neigh whenever he saw another horse, and as Newmarket Heath has almost as many horses as blades of glass, this habit grew trying both to myself and to the other horses at exercise on the heath. Before I got rid of him, however, he broke out of his stall into the stall of Little Missus, Pretty Pollys friend, and badly savaged her about the head, neck and body. Another similar happening was when Church History, a horse of recent date, came to my stable to lead Sarchedon in his Derby training. A door having been left unlocked, as doors sometimes are, despite stringent rules, he walked into another box, and while savaging its occupant was badly bitten himself. LITTLE MISSUS NO RACE HORSE. But to return to Pretty Polly and her friend, Little Missus. The little mare had no pretensions to being a race horse, but she reciprocated the marked attachment of her flying friend. When Pretty Polly went out to exercise Little Missus always went with her and kept her company everywhere she went. The affection she bore for the great mare was reciprocated to a great extent, and Pretty Polly invariably looked for her little companion. , " We thought it wisest to send Little Missus with Pretty Polly to every race course where the latter was due to run. When Pretty Polly wes being led round the paddock before the race. Little Missus was there too. It was only when the jockey had mounted the popular favorite that these two inseperables were separated for a short while. Even then Little Missus showed that she knew the whereabouts of her friend, for she would walk to the palings and stand watching the race. The attachment of Pretty Polly and Little Missus was commemorated by a well-known artist, Major Giles, after the race for the Chevely Park Stakes, by a lifelike drawing of the two odd friends which now hangs in my drawing room at Clarehaven. Until Pretty roily arrived Little Missus was used as a hunter by my sons, for she was not speedy enough to make a race horse. When Pretty Polly went to the stud, fifteen years ago, the two were finally separated. Pretty Polly may have grieved over her lost friend, but she gave no outward sign of it, and has probably long since forgotten her. Little Missus did not go the stud she went to the studio instead. For I gave her as a present to Herbert Haseltine, the famous animal sculptor, who installed her in his studio in Paris, where she served a useful purpose as a model for some of his fine work.
