Newmarket in the Olden Time. 7 7 



over the D.I., or enter the lists for a B.C. plate. 

 Very few two-year-olds were then trained, but year- 

 lings were at times called upon to exhibit, over their 

 especial 2 fur. 52 yds. course on the Flat. Matching 

 was the very heart-blood of the meetings, and when 

 ten or twelve choice souls, each with the spirit of a 

 Bedford or a Glasgow, met in earnest round the 

 Club decanters, both jockeys and trainers knew that 

 there would be heavy work cut out for them before 

 dawn. Five harvest moons had waned since the 

 merry heart and splendid presence of " George 

 Guelph" had ceased to enliven these revels. The 

 Newmarket breakfast-tables were no longer on the 

 qui vive for the news of some fresh practical joke 

 which had been played off by him at the Club over- 

 night. No French Prince had now to be coaxed 

 vigorously for twelve hours before he would forgive 

 the royal thrust, which sent him suddenly overhead 

 into the pond before its windows, as he bent forward 

 to examine " de beautiful fish of gold;" and even 

 Bow-street Townsend had ceased to look grim and 

 discomfited, when the wags would persist in asking 

 him if he had "found the door keyf } The royal 

 string, with their lads in scarlet liveries, was no longer 

 to be seen issuing out of the Palace stables, when 

 Baker or Neale was in command, and streaming across 

 the flat, or up the Bury hill, in Indian file ; and a 

 massive but finely-formed outline, in an overcoat with 

 a fur collar, was no longer dimly descried at the end- 

 ing post by Samuel Chifney, as he rode the trials at 

 five o'clock on a grey September morning. The 

 bitterness with which some, who were all smiles to 

 the Prince's face, commented behind his back on the 

 running of Escape, had driven him in disgust from 

 the spot, with a hasty vow that it should know him 

 no more. Still his temporary desertion did not make 

 the Heath a desert. Francis Duke of Bedford had 

 upwards of thirty horses at the Valley, or Eight-mile 



