306 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. 



along the bottom furrow till he got to the one run- 

 ning straight up to the flags, and then sent Lottery 

 out like a shot, and beat the mare a good two lengths. 

 Lord Waterford's Blueskin, however, should not be 

 forgotten among steeple-chasers, as with his " owner 

 up," and at all weights from 13st. 71bs. to 12st., he 

 won three four-mile steeple-chases successively against 

 fresh horses, one afternoon, at Eglinton Park, in 1843 

 Sir Charles Knightley's leap of thirty-one feet over 

 a fence and brook, just below Brixworth-hill, has ever 

 since gone by the name of " Knightley's leap. " It 

 was accomplished, we believe, on his celebrated black 

 horse Benvolio, but he was on his nearly as famous 

 bay Sir Marinel when he led Mr. Gurney on Sober 

 Robin over a gate, such as a nineteen- stone man 

 has never yet jumped, and never will again. The 

 Pytchley had a fast thing from a gorse of the baro- 

 net's, at Dodford, and ran to the Nen, near Heyford 

 village, where there is a bridge across the river, and 

 a six-barred locked gate in the middle of it. They 

 were just running into their fox, about 200 yards 

 ahead, when Sir Charles, with Mr. Gurney about as 

 far behind him, reached the gate. Finding it locked, 

 he turned his horse round and went over it, and to 

 his amazement, as he glanced back, the Norfolk 

 welter and his horse were in the air. Fortune fa- 

 voured them; and although Robin rapped it like 

 thunder with every leg, they landed safe. " What 

 do you think of that ?" was the question put to Parson 

 Walker, who wouldn't have charged a hurdle for a 

 bishopric, at a county table that evening and " Why, 

 that my friend Dick has more guts than brains !" was 

 the prompt reply. This leap made quite " a sensation" 

 in the neighbourhood, and was visited by hundreds 

 for many a week. Benvolio and Sir Marinel were a 

 very different style of horse, and while the former 

 was bigger and better through dirt, he was not so 

 uniformly to be depended on for temper. At first he 



