204 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. 



Queen's Plates at the Curragh, The Queen's Plate at 

 the Caledonian Hunt, and " The Whip" at New- 

 market, there are no four-mile races left ; and the 

 massacre of cracks which has immemorially been 

 enacted in the last-named race, is enough to drive 

 " the beacon" out of fashion. West Australian was 

 spared that public auto da fe, while Wild Dayrell met 

 his fate " in another place," a martyr to his owner's 

 too rigorous feeling of honour. Wild Dayrell is not 

 quite so large as he looks, and only measures sixteen 

 one and a-quarter. A more magnificent topped horse 

 was never seen ; but, like Ephesus, he is an inch too 

 long in the leg for beauty, and rather light below 

 the knee, and tapers so decidedly from his arm to the 

 ground, besides turning his toes out, that his owner 

 may thank the splendid mossy texture of the Wea- 

 thercock Hill in Ashdown Park, that he kept on his 

 legs so long. He inherits his size from his dam, 

 Ellen Middleton, who is perhaps, with the exception 

 of being a trifle straight in the hocks, as fine a brood 

 mare as we ever saw. She was at Sweetmeat's pad- 

 docks when we saw her last year, and one of a long 

 platoon of mares standing under a hedge with their 

 backs to the bitter east wind, among whom were the 

 dams of Mincepie and Sugarplum ; while one of the 

 first of the Mountain Deer foals, with hair as long and 

 rough as a billy-goat, stood defying the breezes hard 

 by. West Australian's form changed so completely 

 between the Derby and the St. Leger, that his stable 

 felt sure he must be lOlbs. better, or lOlbs. worse; 

 and we could hardly recognise in the smart well- 

 moulded horse of the autumn, the sleepy-looking colt 

 whom poor " Frank" mounted with anything but 

 ground-less apprehensions on the Derby day. This 

 infirmity prevented the world from ever half-knowing 

 what "my hack" could do at four years old, although 

 as a stayer John Scott ranked him below Touchstone. 

 Hence Teddington must, to our minds, claim the 



