26 The Post and the Paddock. 



ground at Danebury looks as if it would never be hard 

 in any weather, though the Day lot has, we believe, 

 had to gallop occasionally on a down beyond Stock- 

 bridge, in a very dry season ; while John Scott's two- 

 mile tan gallop on Langton Wold renders him equally 

 independent all summer. This gallop was only laid 

 down in 1850 ; and there has never been any other in 

 Yorkshire, except the temporary one which William 

 Scott used in Mr. Wyse's big field at Malton, when he 

 and William Gates trained Sir Tatton Sykes for the 

 St. Leger. The " Thellusson Trust" crops now wave 

 upon the little Pigburn racecourse, where John Scott 

 was wont to adjourn with his lot, during the dry 

 season, for nearly twenty years, and billet them, horse 

 and boy, among three or four of the Brodsworth 

 farmers. Newminster, who had good reason to re- 

 member one of these mornings, did not return to Pig- 

 burn after his York defeat ; but no less than seven of 

 John Scott's St. Leger winners, beginning with Mar- 

 grave, had the finishing touches put to them there, 

 and made their six-mile pilgrimages to Doncaster to 

 run their trials, when the Newmarket of the North 

 was still deep in dreams, and not a soul except the 

 landlord of the Salutation and the corporation steward 

 was cognizant of their stealthy approach, in the grey 

 morning mist, down the Carr House lane. Frank 

 Butler was invariably on the trial horse ; and Earl 

 Derby used to slip down after the House was up, by 

 the mail train to Swinton with a friend, and form one 

 of the select group at the post. Ilsley, Holywell, 

 Hambleton, Hungerford, and Richmond, have " good- 

 going," and are superior in this respect to Hednesford, 

 Delamere Forest, and Langton Wolds. The Low 

 Moor at Middleham is often dry, being upon a rocky 

 substratum, and hence, in summer the strings exercise 

 on the High Moor, whose surface is composed of 

 beautiful mossy peat. A lofty pillar stands at one 

 end of it, to mark the spot where Bay Bolton was 



