170 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. 



were sucli (and we can only state our own opinion 

 on the last), were mere specks in a career of thirty 

 years in the Newmarket judgment seat, which was 

 occupied from 1805 to 1822 by his father, and since 

 1852 by his son. Mr. Nightingale once gave a race 

 in Scotland by " two or three inches/' but perhaps 

 the most difficult finish to decide was the Zetland 

 Stakes at the York Spring of '56. We asked Mr, 

 Johnson how he ever contrived to place them as he 

 did, and he told us that when he saw the five hard 

 at it head and head, he felt that he dared not watch 

 them as they came, but turned and kept his eye firm 

 on the white line, and just hit them off with a glance 

 as they passed it. If he had given it a dead heat 

 of five, neither jockeys nor spectators would have 

 been a wit the wiser, though the " roughs " chose 

 to be savagely critical when Mildew beat Cantab at 

 York, and sent Mr. Clark in hot haste from the chair 

 to the weighing-room. Sam never forgot many of 

 his father's precepts, and always liked " to lie under 

 the wind " in a race, but he had none of his love of 

 check cords, and seldom resorted to his desperate 

 resort of spurring a horse in the brisket. " I find 

 when it comes to the last spring," Old Sam used to 

 say, " I can get a head there when I can get it no 

 where else." Sam also rode closer with his knees, 

 and was not so loose and slovenly in his jockey cos- 

 tume, and although both were equally silent and 

 proud in their way, especially in refusing mounts they 

 did not like, no one every saw the younger one per- 

 petually on the trot up and down Newmarket " with 

 his coat buttoned behind/' a practice which seemed 

 to keep the senior in riding form. Old Mat Stephen- 

 son was however much more unique in his dress, 

 and always wore a rusty hunting cap when he super- 

 intended the sweats, and had a boy carrying the spare 

 sweating cloths on an old coach horse, which eventu- 

 ally glandered nearly all Lord Grosvenor's string. 

 But we are not yet quite at the ending post with 



