252 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. 



their way, or flaunted in ribbons through Shrews- 

 bury market. The usual result took place : bodies 

 grew less and less, and the beautiful heads or " bon- 

 nets" which Comus and Strephon brought into the 

 country began to be replaced by a shapeless thing 

 "as big as a sugar warehouse." The regular old 

 Shropshire type of hunters, who pricked up their 

 ears at the challenge of the Trojans, is derived prin- 

 cipally from Black Sultan, Revenge, and Regulus, 

 who flourished some forty years ago. Black Sultan, 

 who was the property of Mr. Hiles, a miller at 

 Shrewsbury, was far away the greatest of the three, 

 and to this day the Shropshire men vow that almost 

 every hunter with a black or chesnut skin bears 

 kindred to the old horse, just as almost every ugly- 

 headed hunter, for the last fifth of a century, has 

 been consistently fathered on Belzoni. An immense 

 number of his stock, after a wondrous jumping ca- 

 reer, went stone blind. The Yorkshire Comus, on 

 the contrary (who seemed to get nothing but greys 

 and chesnuts), went blind when he was rising four, 

 and he was never known, that we heard of, to get a 

 blind one. It is also a fact that a well- known second- 

 rate blood sire lately went blind early in the year 

 and, contrary to his usual luck, almost every mare 

 that was served by him during that season threw a filly. 

 But we are not yet done with Shropshire. Planet, 

 by Dungannon, Driver, a three parts bred, and Ro- 

 sario, by Ambrosio, a rather low-tailed horse ; Mr. 

 Gore's Hesperus, Pilkington, the maternal uncle of 

 Ion, the sire of countless flashy fine goers, whom the 

 dealers loved, and the long and low Gimcrack, the 

 property, along with Planet, Rosario, Champion, 

 and Pilkington, of the Clays of Wem, who never 

 lacked a good horse, also rank among their paddock 

 worthies. Then there was Spectre, son of Phantom, 

 whom came from the Ludlow district, and with the 

 then young Jemmy Chappie on his back, made very 



