BLOOD SHIES. 201 



are generally preferred to his sire's. He is very 

 little above fifteen-two, and rather cloudy-eyed ; but 

 he is one of those finely -knit and strong-quartered 

 horses, who look as if they would answer to a pull and 

 " come again" under any amount of distress, as only 

 an English horse can ; and Scythian (whom we last 

 heard of travelling 1,600 miles by a cranky railway 

 and in a negro's charge, to join Glencoe in Kentucky), 

 Fazzoletto, and Teddington have not belied his 

 promise. His yearling stock uniformly fetch the high- 

 est prices of the day, and stamp him as the most popu- 

 lar race-horse-sire we have. As a general thing they 

 are a little gaudy ; and one of the '56 Hampton Court 

 yearlings, with a white face and four long white 

 stockings, is the breathing fac-simile of Vulture. 

 Nat does not perhaps think him so good as Glencoe, 

 but he was the horse of all others he loved most to 

 ride. He used to say of him that he never knew him 

 change legs either in a race or at exercise, and that 

 his stroke, as he watched it from his back, had all the 

 wondrous precision of an engine piston ; and he now 

 adds that next to him he liked to feel himself on 

 Rifleman. For look, there is no untried son of Touch- 

 stone we prefer to the lengthy, short-legged New- 

 minster, who has the honour of old Beeswing in his 

 stud-keeping, and is not likely to disgrace her. 



A successful blood sire has been as good as a long 

 annuity to many an owner, and earned its special will- 

 clause like " The Black Mare" in re Pettingall, whose 

 J?50 per annum "Account" was so carefully considered 

 by Sir Knight Bruce, in reference to the possible rise 

 in hay and corn during her life. Matchem, whose 

 galloping likeness, with his two hind legs on the 

 ground and his two front in the air, still creaks on 

 many a village sign-board in the north, produced no 

 less than 17,000 to his owner. Eclipse realized 

 nearly that sum ; and Highflyer, whose stock were 

 of every colour down to piebalds, an almost fabulous 



