When Chukkers rode the famous International that established him once and for all in a class by himself among cross-country riders, snatching an astounding victory on Hooka-burra from Lady Golightly, his win and the way he rode his race was largely due to Joses's report on the favourite's staying power. "She'll gallop three and three-quarter miles at top speed," he had said, "and then bust like a bladder. Bustle her all the way, and yours'll beat her from the last fence." When Joses was put away for incendiarism, the Three J's missed him far more than they would have cared to admit. They had two bad seasons in succession, and a worse followed. At the end of the third Chukkers, for the first time for seven years, no longer headed the list of winning jockeys. Then Ikey carried off his jockey to the States to break his luck. It was on this visit, at some old-fashioned meeting in the Southern States, so the story went, Chukkers discovered the mare from Blue Mounds. All the world knows to-day how she re-established her jockey's fame and made her own. When, after an unforgettable season in Australia, he returned to England with the American mare, the pair had never been beaten. And in the Old Country they repeated the performance of Australia. Together they won the Sefton, the International, and last of all the National. And though Chukkers had been disqualified in the last race, his fame and hers had reached a pinnacle untouched by any horse or man in modern racing history. The star-spangled jacket led the world. * * * * * When Joses came out of prison he journeyed down at once to Dewhurst. Jaggers and Chukkers met him. It did not take the tout long to get a hang of the situation. The National was coming on in a few weeks. The mare had to win at all costs. Since her victory and defeat at Aintree in the previous March she had never run but once in public, and that time had scattered her field. Jaggers had been laying her up in lavender all the winter for the great race, and she was now at the top of her form. They took Joses round to her loose-box. Just back from work she was stripped and sweating, swishing her tail, savaging her manger with arched neck, tramping to and fro on swift, uneasy feet as her lad laboured at her. So perfectly compact was she that the tout heard with surprise that she stood little short of sixteen hands. The length of her rein compensated for the shortness of her back, and her hocks and hind-quarters were those of a panther, lengthy and well let-down. The fat man ran his eye over her fair proportions. "She's beautiful," he mused.