A piece of silver plate removed from a trophy originally presented to Arthur Yates who owned, trained and rode his four-year-old steeplechaser 'Harold

A piece of silver plate removed from a trophy originally presented to Arthur Yates who owned, trained and rode his four-year-old steeplechaser 'Harold' to five victories in the calendar year of 1866, the inscription confirming the races as the Croydon Spring Cup, the United Hunt Cup (Waterloo), Sevenoaks Cup, the Hunter's Stakes (Chertsey) and the Croydon Autumn Cup Included in this lot is a clip-frame mounted photocopy from Yates's autobiography, written in collaboration with Bruce Blunt, that features a passage on Harold, with Yates recalling a famous incident in the Croydon Autumn Cup where he faced two opponents Cortolvin and Flyfisher: ''Flyfisher and Harold charged the water jump together and both fell. I rose from the mud just in time to see Harold going off on his own. Running after him I seized him by the tail and scrambled into the saddle. Meanwhile Cortolvin had fallen at the next fence, and I passed him just as his jockey, Page, was beginning to remount. Flyfisher, the last to be righted, was toiling a long way to the rear, and, with Cortolvin again falling at the last obstacle, Harold and I had the race in safe keeping and cantered past the post, as Bell's Life said, ''amid deafening cheers.'' The crowd swarmed on to the course, but Cortolvin and Flyfisher were not finished by any means. Cortolvin's jockey was in the saddle again and was fighting a desperate struggle with Flyfisher's jockey for second money through the midst of the people. Eventually Cortolvin gained second place by two lengths. Of this race the poet of The Sporting Life sang: A WONDERFUL TAIL AT CROYDON In racing reports it is oftentimes said That a jockey has cleverly won by a head; But Yates has performed, when all other arts fail, A more wonderful feat - for he won by a tail ! the clip mount also containing a photocopy of an illustration of Yates clutching Harold's tail, and a portrait of Yates