XXX. 



Lady Suffolk in 1850, 1851, 1852, 1853. Her Retirement and Death. The 

 Story of Flora Tsmple. Opening Chapter of her History, by George 

 Wilkes. 



I DO not propose to follow the career of Lady Suffolk in 

 all its further details. Sufficient lias been said to show 

 what a wonderful mare she was ; and, before she left the 

 turf, the shadow of another, and a greater than she, began 

 to appear upon the dial. In 1850, Lady Suffolk trotted 

 sixteen times, mostly with success ; in 1851, fourteen 

 times ; in 1852, fifteen times ; in 1853, twice, and in both 

 of these races she was defeated. That was about the last 

 of the famous gray mare. She became the property of Mr. 

 Ezra White, and died in honorable retirement. She never 

 had a foal. The greater than- she, to whom I- have alluded, 

 was Flora Temple ; and her first appearance in history is so 

 finely and graphically told in the first chapter of her life by 

 George Wilkes, that I mean to make it a part of this book, 

 as follows : 



CHAPTER I. 



The sun shone beautifully in the summer of 1850. It 

 shone with peculiar brightness all along the Hudson Biver 

 at that time, and especially in Duchess County ; but no- 

 where in the wide world, in the summer of 1850, did its 

 beams fall with a more sweet and mellow radiance than in 

 the little village of Washington Hollow, about four miles 

 back of the town of Poughkeepsie. It seemed, indeed, to 

 come into the village with peculiar gladness ; and, from the 



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