SAM CHIFNEY. 99 



of being worsted by a head. In the Violante v. Selim, 

 four-mile match, Sam was not so fortunate, as Selim 

 gave in dead-beat, about a quarter of a mile from 

 home. Although some of Buckle's best victories were 

 gained on the world-famed mare Violante, he always 

 felt a little sore when he won on her, as she ought 

 really to have been his own. She had been at one 

 time turned out of Lord Grosvenor's stud as useless, 

 and was open to any purchaser at .50. Buckle heard 

 this, and accordingly rode over to Hare Park, and told 

 Pratt that he would have her at that price, and send 

 for her in a day or two. Lord Grosvenor was told of 

 this purchase in the interim, and felt so sure that if 

 Buckle had looked over her and liked her, there 

 must be more in her than had met his own and 

 Pratt's eye, that he sent and begged him to give up 

 his bargain, which he very reluctantly did. Selim, 

 a fine lengthy chesnut with a white heel and immense 

 speed, was also celebrated in that day for more rea- 

 sons than one, as his running in a sweepstakes, when 

 Sam was not te up," was so suspicious that the Prince 

 sent a peremptory message to the trainer, to the effect 

 that the whole of his horses were " to be sold or given 

 away immediately" Reubens, on whom Sam had 

 finished a very close fourth in a rattling finish for the 

 Pan Derby of that year (1808), and whom Dan Daw- 

 son boasted that he had once " got at," was among the 

 fifteen which went up to TattersalFs to be sold in the 

 autumn, and eighteen years passed over before the 

 Prince's third and last time of asking began. Chif- 

 ney senior had died in London in the January of 

 the preceding year, within the dismal bars and bolts 

 of the Fleet Prison, where he had been consigned by 

 one Latchford the saddler, (who had been connected 

 with him in the manufacture of the Chifney bits,) for 

 a debt of .350. He was scarcely fifty-two when his 

 wife and six children followed him to his last resting- 

 place in the city churchyard of St. Sepulchre's ; but 



