206 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. 



Middleton; and in the St. Leger of 1829, when 

 Voltaire, with Sir Hercules at his quarters, all but 

 reached Rowton 011 the post. The finish for the 

 latter race in 1849, between the Dutchman, Nunny- 

 kirk, and Vatican, also showed us three elegant but 

 very different types of " terribly high-bred cattle." 

 In point of what breeders emphatically call " qua- 

 lity," horses differ immensely. Orlando has a great 

 deal of it, and so have many of his stock, as well as 

 some of the Venisons. In Sultan, whose head might 

 have beseemed a Belvidere Apollo among horses, it 

 was seen to very great perfection ; and, noble savage 

 as he is, Phlegon, out of Lucetta, shows perhaps as 

 much or more of it than any animal of the day. His 

 eye, and his whole attitude, as he arched his beauti- 

 ful neck, and half fixed his eye on his box visitors on 

 the Burleigh sale day, as if by a species of wild fasci- 

 nation trying to woo them within his hoof-range, was 

 a study of animal nature such as we shall never forget. 

 It was this temper which marred his racing career, 

 and he would (like Slane) stop suddenly in his exer- 

 cise gallops, and then think better of it, and go on and 

 catch his horses again like the wind. The court-yard 

 at Burleigh, that lovely August afternoon, was a per- 

 fect carnival of blood sires of every type and hue. 

 Midas, the blood pony of the day, was kept in strict 

 limbo by wooden reins, and sent forth an indignant 

 chorus of whinnies as his less favoured companions 

 were led past him to the hammer. Stockwell came 

 ambling out in his peculiar style, with his Roman 

 head and massive muscular points wonderfully fined 

 down since he all but broke Teddington's heart. 

 Phlegon glared on the assembly like a tiger, and was 

 led snorting away when no one would go beyond 

 190 guineas ; and Nutwith, with his almost-matchless 

 back and quarters, presenting a perfect line of beauty 

 as you stood rather behind him, and did not care to 

 query whether his shoulder was not slightly loaded, 



