instance of whicli I am apprized, of any racer of Spanish blood, is that of 

 Runapless, got by Dr. Bracken's Andalusian Horse, by the Doctor's 

 description, a real Jennet. 



Notliing Can be more probable, than the very strict attention to 

 ^jedigree was an afier improvement, and that, in the intimcy of the 

 racing system, any promising sontlievn Horse was trained, and even in 

 the phrase of these times, their bastard crosses. Such, indeed, are re- 

 conmiended for the course, by Markbam, Baret, and the contemporary 

 writers. But I think I ought to acknowledge myself in an error, in 

 having formerly supposed the same uncertainty to subsist so late as the- 

 reignof Anne. A sporting gentleman, dead some years since, thought 

 me wrong, in suspecting the integrity of blood in Bay Bolton and 

 Bonny Black. With respect to the former, I was led, or misled, by an 

 account subjoined to an old porU'ait of the Horse, to which I cannot 

 just now, have recourse ; and as to the mare, it is strange, famous as she 

 was, that her pedigree, if she really had one, should never have been 

 produced. It is only known that she was got by a Horse called Black 

 Hearty, a son of the Byerley Turk, his dam not named, and that her 

 dam was by a Persian stallion. If any dependence may be placed on 

 tlie jK)rtrait which remains of" her, the head, and more particularly the 

 feet, look suspicious. Her performances, however, were at no rate, 

 suspicious, but in effect, fully equal, if not superior, to any in the records 

 of the turf, not excepting even Childers and Echpse. Whether those 

 are to be attributed to the inferiority of the running cattle of that day, 

 or what kind of figure such a racer as Bonny Black, would have made, 

 when opposed to Flying Childers, or to our later capital Horses, cannot 

 at this distance, be determined. But I am, by no means disposed to 

 retract my opinion, concerning Robinson's Sampson. Not only did the- 

 account of the groom appear to me entitled to credit, but the internal 

 evidence of the Horse's having had in him across of common blood, is 

 sufficiently strong, by the appearance both of the Horse himself, and 

 of his stock; an idea in which every sportsman, I believe, who remem- 

 bers Engineer, Mambrino, and others, will agree with me. 



But this dip of plebeian blood, however little or much it might be, can 

 scarcely be called a blot, even in the escutcheon of Sampson, since such 



2 G 2 accidental 



-t. 



