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BAY MIDDLETON'S PROGENY.

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Middleton would get a good race-horse, and it was only in consequence of continual failures that he was at last induced to send Crucifix, Latitude, and one or two others to Touchstone, with the result that Surplice and Loadstone were foaled in 1845, and sold by Lord George as yearlings in 1846, with the rest of his stud. His Lordship did not live to see the full realisation of his anticipation that one day Bay Middleton would become the sire of a great horse. This happened in 1846, when The Flying Dutchman was born, and in 1851, when Andover, another winner of the Derby, first saw the light. Again, in 1848, Sir Joseph Hawley's Venus gave birth to Aphrodité, and in 1853 to Kalipyge, both being daughters of Bay Middleton, the last-named being, in Sir Joseph Hawley's opinion, the best mare that he ever owned. She broke down in 1856, after winning the Craven Stakes at Epsom.

The site selected by the present Duke of Portland for his breeding establishment at Welbeck Abbey, upon which he has erected extensive buildings and formed very complete and wellarranged paddocks, is the very spot which it was Lord George's ambition to employ for the same purpose, if he could have prevailed upon his father to entertain the idea. The extraordinary success attending the valuable stud installed at this moment upon the site in question is another proof of Lord George's foresight; but it is doubtful

whether a stud owned by Lord George would have attained that excellence, or afforded him as much pleasure as it has to the present Duke, more especially if Bay Middleton had been stationed there. It was Lord George's hope, when he bought Bay Middleton, that the horse might be able to win the Ascot Cup as a four-year-old in 1837; but one of his fore - legs, which had been very suspicious - looking when he ran his last race, failed in training, and though entered for the Cup, to which there were forty subscribers, he could not start. He was then sent, as I have already said, to join his Lordship's stud at Doncaster. Nothing could exceed Lord George's disappointment when Bay Middleton failed as a stallion. The enormous amount of forfeits paid in produce stakes for his stock would have discouraged any one else, while to some it would have been absolutely fatal. But Lord George was too firm of purpose to be daunted or turned aside by any disappointment. The only effect it had was to make him patronise more successful stallions at any cost. However clever and practical a breeder or owner of thoroughbreds may be, the uncertainty attending speculation in racing stock is always likely to upset his calculations. Although Lord George possessed two game and fairly good horses in Elis and Venison, he could not be satisfied without investing 4000 guineas in buying Bay Middleton. Simultaneously he sold

CASUALTY STOCK.

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the other two, which it would, perhaps, have been wiser in him to have kept, and not to have bought Bay Middleton at all. It cannot be denied that the late Sir Tatton Sykes spoke truly and from long experience when he called thoroughbred stallions, brood mares, and their progeny "casualty stock."

CHAPTER IV.

HORSE-RACING PREVIOUS TO VANS.

THE success attending the conveyance of Elis to Doncaster by this novel and expeditious method was a great achievement, as upon few, if upon any, previous occasions was the attempt to win the St Leger with a horse sent from the south of England successful. From Newmarket it occupied nine days to travel to Doncaster on foot, and from Goodwood fifteen or sixteen days, which, with all the vicissitudes of weather, undesirable accommodation, and inferior provender, entailed great risk, expense, and frequent disappointment. To set off with four or five horses in order to make a long journey on foot, with little or no change of clothes for the horses or lads, each horse having his muzzle, containing brush and comb, rubber, sponge, and perhaps a set of extra bandages--the whole secured by one of the stirrup-leathers and laid over the withers-was indeed a serious business. I generally accompanied the horses on my own hack, and sometimes driving

HORSES ON THE ROAD.

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in my buggy. If the weather proved wet, our difficulties were greatly increased, as it took an infinity of trouble to dry all the clothes at the inns where the horses stopped for the night. Colds and coughs, attended with distemper or strangles, were of frequent occurrence, and it was with a knowledge of all this that Lord George exercised his resourceful ingenuity to devise some plan of carrying his horses on wheels to the scene of action. Previously, the endeavour to win the St Leger with what were termed in those days South Country horses had signally failed, although such superior animals had been sent to Doncaster as Sultan, Plenipotentiary, Shillelagh, Ascot, Revenge, Byzantium, Rubini, Marcus, Priam, Frederick, Exquisite, Mameluke, Translation, Spondee, Redgauntlet, and Preserve. With the exception of Mameluke, who ran second to Matilda, and of Priam, who was placed second to Mr Beardsworth's Birmingham, not one of the above-named starters got a place, although some of them were backed heavily. Those were indeed primitive times, and Lord George seemed to possess a special faculty for revolutionising and galvanising them. Previous to the construction of vans,

1 For the following statement I am indebted to Mr W. H. Langley: "This was not surprising in Plenipo's case, as he came to the post as fat as a bullock, from having done little or no work during the time he was located at Brocklesby Park during the previous month. Such information was volunteered to me by a resident at Limber, who saw the horse daily."-ED.

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