20 ECLIPSE. 



nine hours. He performed it in six hours and tewntyoue min 

 utes. He employed ten horses, and, allowing for mounting and 

 dismounting, and a moment for refreshment, he rode for six 

 hours at the rate of twenty miles an hour. 



Mr Thornhill, in 1745, exceeded this, for he lude from Stil- 

 ton to London and back, and again to Stilton, bcnig two hun- 

 dred and thirteen miles, in eleven hours and thirty -four minutes, 

 which is, after allowing the least possible time for changing 

 horses, twenty miles an hour for eleven hours, and on the turn- 

 pike road and uneven ground. 



Mr. Shaftoe, in 1762, with ten horses, and five of them ridden 

 twice, accomplished fifty miles and a quarter, in one hour and 

 forty-nine minutes. In 1763, Mr. Shaftoe won a more extraor- 

 dinary match. He was to procure a person to ride one hundred 

 miles a day, on any one horse each day, for twenty-nine days 

 together, and to have any number of horses not exceeding twenty- 

 nine. He accomplished it on fourteen horses ; and on one day 

 he rode one hundred and sixty miles, on account of the tiring of 

 his first horse. 



Mr. Hull's duibbler, however, afforded the most extraordinar}' 

 mstance on record, of the stoutness as well as speed of the race- 

 horse. In December, 1786, he ran twenty-three miles round the 

 flat at Newmarket, in fifty-seven minutes and ten seconds. 



Eclipse was got by Marsk, a grandson of Bartlett's Childers. 



Of the beauty, yet peculiarity ol' his form, much has been said 

 The very grent size, obliquity, and lowness of his shoulders were 

 the objects of general remark — with the shortness of his fore- 

 quarters, his ample and finely proportioned quarters, and the 

 swelling muscles of his fore-arm and thigh. Of his speed, no 

 correct estimate can be formed, for he never met with an op- 

 ponent sufficiently fleet to put it to the test. 



He was bred by the Duke of Cumberland, and sold at his 

 death to Mr. Wildman, a sheep salesman, for seventy-five guineas. 

 Col. 0' Kelly purchased a share of him from Wildman. In the 

 spring of the following year, when the reputation of this wonder- 

 ful animal was at its height, 0' Kelly wislied to become sole 

 owner of him, and bought the remaining share for one thousand 

 pounds. 



Eclipse was what is termed a thick-winded horse, and puffed 

 and roared so as to be heard at a considerable distance. For 

 this or some other cause, he was not brought on the turf until he 

 was five years old. 



0' Kelly, aware of his horse's powers, had backed him freely 

 on his first race, in May, 1769. The first heat was easily won, 

 when 0' Kelly, observing that the rider had been pulling at 

 Eclipse durmg the whole of the race, ofTered a wager that he 



