402 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



Tuck, and so completely did the judges conceal their 

 game, that a whisper (which almost rose into the dignity 

 of a fact, and caused Messrs. Barnes and Richardson, 

 who liad retired for a chat in the back of the gallery, to 

 receive the premature congratulations and consolations 

 of their friends) went through the crowd, that the roan 

 and red were in the first two places. However, it was 

 not to be : the post was past, the judges made the pencil 

 entries in their books of fate, and the great Easter secret 

 was out at last, that King of Hearts had come up with a 

 stealthy rush in the last few strides, and landed the old 

 yellow-red Hubback colours first. Friar Tuck finished 

 second, Victor Emmanuel third, Red Knight was higbly 

 commended as the reserve fourth, and Bagatelle, Lord 

 of Athelstane, Garibaldi, Woodranger, Master Jones, 

 and Gamester were commended. People liked King of 

 Hearts better as they examined him, and although 

 perhaps he was not the choice of the house, all seemed 

 to allow that the four best bulls had been most deftly 

 sifted from the strange incongruous mass. 



This exciting contest being over, the judges retired 

 to breakfast, which they had richly earned by three 

 hours' labour. Then the two-year-old bulls had to be 

 gone through, and out of the twenty-five entries, 

 Soubadar, the winner of the yearling class last year, and 

 Little Wonder (both of them the property of the 

 octogenarian, Mr. Coppinger), Lord Lurgan's Trum- 

 peter, Mr. Barnes's Master Harbinger, Mr. G. Roe's 

 Leviathan, Mr. F. Walsh's Count Cavour, and Mr. R. 

 C. Lowndes's Gaylad were the only ones that passed 

 muster. The two whites. Count Cavour and Trum- 

 peter, were soon separated from their fellows, and it 

 was soon patent to all that Soubadar was an easy win- 

 nei', from the fact that the judges scarcely ever looked 

 at him. They had quite enough on their hands, and 

 were apparently in some difficulty as to the adjustment 

 of the balance between Little Wonder and Master Har- 

 binger, who although nearly six months younger, girthed 

 only 1 inch less than Soubadar. He is a fine-fleshed son of 

 Harbinger, and from Mr. Barnes's Blossom tribe, most 

 beautiful in the head and level in the flank, but his 

 shoulders were rather upright ; while Little Wonder, 

 although good throughout, had hardly such fine bull 

 character. This latter point just turned the scale, 

 although it was currently believed, for some time after, 

 that Little Wonder had gained second place, and not 

 the V. H. C. Leviathan looked as enormous as ever, 

 though perhaps a little light in the flank for a bull of 

 his size, and, like the Liverpool bull Gaylad, he won a 

 commendation. Soubadar, who was the great beef centre 

 of the show, has been well done to, and has gathered 

 fashion since leigt year, instead of growing coarse, as 

 many suspected he would. He has great liberty and elc • 

 gance of outline, a fine coat, a twist and thighs not easily 

 forgotten, and only a little inclined to be patchy on the 

 top of his tail. The mean had been hit so cleverly be- 

 tween nice getting up and a working state that we trust 

 that Mr. Coppinger will still further prove the excel- 

 lence of his 200-guinea bargain by sending him over 

 next July to throw down the Irish gauntlet in the aged- 

 buU class at Leeds. He is by Prince of Warlaby (15107), 



from a Baron ^Varlaby dam and a Hamlet grandam, 

 and, as British Prince and Prince of Warlaby are both 

 in Ireland, we may well look for some more Booth- 

 blood triumphs. 



Mr. Ambler's Great Eastern had a happy escape 

 from him, as he was just twenty-seven days too old for 

 this class, and carried off the three-year-old one with 

 flying colours. Still the class was a very weak one, as 

 out of the 27 entries only five were summoned to the 

 avenue test. Of these Mr. J. W. Maxwell's Amphion 

 was thick -fleshed, but common in his head and outline, 

 and Lord Clyde walked a good deal better than he stood 

 up. Mr. F. W. Low was also represented by a name- 

 less Barley Sugar bull ; Lord Talbot de Malahide's 

 Mystery— a bull with longish hind-quarters and hocks 

 well under him and not a very level top — was second, 

 and Mr. Anderson's Lord Clyde, of Lord Duff'erin's 

 breeding exhausted the commendations. One of the 

 judges thought so little of these four, that he proposed 

 that no second prize should be given. 



The dozen old bulls were of a very dift'erent stamp ; 

 and it was out of something more than respect for their 

 age and the number of times some of them have stood 

 on that floor of doom, that we saw them all ordered out. 

 Mr. Ambler's Prince Talleyrand, that faithful bench- 

 man to Royal Butterfly for two English seasons, crossed 

 the Channel on no bootless errand ; and the head prize 

 was his, almost from the first moment that the judges 

 caught a glimpse of him. His back does not seem to 

 droop so much as it did last year ; but still he is not a 

 very elegant bull when you stand behind him, and he 

 had sadly lost his hairj a point in which Irish breeders 

 seem to have a great pull over us, owing, we conclude, 

 to climate causes. Mr. Jeffrey Barcroft's Sir Colin 

 and Mr. Allan PoUok's Ambo had a hard struggle for 

 the second honours; the former bore the hand better, 

 but he had not the long, even, and short-legged frame 

 of the son of old Monk, who took our fancy nearly 

 as much as Soubadar : somehow or other the Sir Colin 

 enthusiasm is dead. Although they were lost in the 

 universal commendation of the class, it is fair to state 

 that Mr. Allan Pollok's Pro Bono Publico, more 

 commanding in size than in grandeur, Mr. Chute's 

 bull, and Mr. A. Bole's Jacob were kept longer than 

 the rest. Eight victors were brought out to contest the 

 gold medal for the best of all the prize bulls in the yard, 

 as well as the Irish Railway and Irish Farmers' Gazette 

 cup ; but all of them, from Prince Talleyrand down to 

 the Kerries, two of which solemnly took their stand for 

 the encounter, were very quickly cut down by Soubadar, 

 who seems, with luck, to be on the high road to *' skin- 

 ning the lamb" in 1860-63. 



Eighteen yearling heifers were selected out of twenty- 

 five entries in a very rare class, but ten of them were 

 shortly returned to the place from whence they came, 

 and Mr. Ambler's Cactus by Prince Talleyrand, and 

 Lady Pigot's Ladye ^Ifrida by Prince Arthur, had to 

 fight for the English interests, against the Marquis of 

 Waterford's Princess Royal by Foundation, Mr. Allen 

 Pollok's Golden Dream by Topham, Florentine and 

 Veronica by Lamp of Lothian, Sir Robert Paul's Stay- 



