TURF HISTORY. 13 



" THE INFANT," when Sam Chifney, senior, took his 

 rank among the first jockeys of the day. Sam wot 

 as little as they did, when he saw a pale, sharp- 

 featured stable lad of Mr. Vernon's try his weight 

 (3st. 131b.) for Wolf, in the May of 1783, that he was 

 the Prank Buckle for whom Fate destined " all the 

 good things at Newmarket " and elsewhere during 

 the next half-century, and whose very whip would 

 become a coveted race-prize among the German 

 Barons. The Prince of Wales only enlivened New- 

 market with his presence and his practical jokes for 

 a brief space, but his love of the turf ended only 

 with life. His Escape and Selim troubles, added to 

 the thoughtless manner in which he compromised 

 himself with the Duke of Bedford, about the "first 

 call" of Chifney, were recollections quite bitter enough 

 to make him adhere to his '91 vow, that he would 

 set foot on its heath no more j and even the famous 

 North and South Matches, between Hambletonian 

 and Diamond, and Filho da Puta and Sir Joshua, did 

 not tempt him down. Hambletonian, the greatest 

 of the four, ceded the championship of the North to 

 his stable-companion Cockfighter, and the name of 

 " Darlington" began to be one of dread to owners 

 with the new century, and his Haphazard, who set Sir 

 Solomon, Cockfighter, Chance, and every other horse 

 north of the Trent at defiance for four seasons. The 

 racing spirit of the Tykes flourished apace as the 

 century rolled on ; and even Sydney Smith, who was 

 flung so often over his horse's head into an adjacent 

 parish that he began to consider it " a great proof 

 of liberality in a county, where every one can ride as 

 soon as they are born, that they tolerated him at 

 all," fulminated in vain from the Malton pulpit, in 

 1809, " against horse-racing and coursing, before 

 the archbishop and sporting clergy of the diocese," 

 The most noted equestrian feats of his Edinburgh 

 Review chief, Jeffrey, seem to have come off in this 



