100 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. 



anxiety and illness had made him old long before his 

 time. A more united family than the Chifneys, both 

 in trouble and prosperity, has rarely ever been wit- 

 nessed ; and the consciousness that he would now be 

 able to make a good May offering to his mother's 

 slender domestic funds not a little nerved Sam's stout 

 heart and hand, when he found himself cleverly win- 

 ning the Oaks of that year at Tattenham Corner, on 

 the eighth favourite, General Grosvenor's Briseis. 



After this very unlooked-for victory, he quitted 

 Perren's Stable, and the Epsom spell being once 

 broken, he again won the Oaks in 1811, for the 

 Duke of Rutland, on his very smart mare Sorcery, 

 the first favourite. The successful five-years' con- 

 nection between him and Perren was not severed by 

 his departure, as in 1812 he became his son-in-law. 

 It was now no easy task for him to go to scale under 

 8st., and his field of action was almost entirely con- 

 fined to Ascot, Epsom, and Newmarket. He had a 

 few mounts at York and Doncaster, for Lord Dar- 

 lington, Sir Mark Sykes, &c. ; but north of the Trent, 

 he was always singularly unlucky, and during his 

 long career, he only won twice at the former place, 

 on Serab and Lady Brough, and once at the latter 

 on Amadis-de-Gaul. 



His early Oaks career was always as green and 

 fresh as his nephew's, and in 1816 he won that stake 

 for the third time on another first favourite, General 

 Gower's Landscape ; repeated the feat for Mr. Thorn- 

 hill by a head on Shoveller, against Buckle on Espag- 

 nolle in 1819 ; and for General Grosvenor, on Wings, 

 in 1825. The last-named mare of whose son, Vates 

 thus spake with keen Derby foresight some eighteen 

 years after : 



" 'Twixt here and the distance, great Caravan sings, 

 ! that my mother would give me her wings /" 



was low and lengthy, and apparently so moderate 



