1 5 2 The Post and the Paddock. 



great hopes that he could have secured Sam for 

 Priam, and offered to lay Lord Darlington iooo/. to 

 ioo/. against the horse, if he would consent ; but his 

 lordship was inexorable, and claimed him for the 

 Sheldrake colt. Mr. Rush was applied to for Robin- 

 son with equally ill success, as he was also heavy 

 against Priam, and firmly insisted on his first call for 

 a wretch called Ivanhoe ; and therefore the "green 

 and black cap" of the family was intrusted to Sam 

 Day, who had won the Derby on Gustavus nine years 

 before. 



To get from Newmarket to Epsom in those days 

 was no May game. Priam and his four companions 

 started at four o'clock in the morning on the Friday 

 week before the Derby day, and Will Chifney caught 

 them up on his pony long before they had completed 

 their twenty-one miles' walk to Newport. Will, who 

 was a great walker in his prime, put some of the 

 commissariat across his pony's back on the second 

 day, and walked all the remainder of the way by the 

 side of his favourite, who excited not a little interest 

 among the sporting innkeepers on the road, who had 

 been anxiously looking out for " t* Newmarket nag." 

 A twenty-two miles' tramp brought the procession to 

 the Cock at Epping, on Saturday ; and long before 

 morning church was finished, it had passed down 

 Piccadilly, and reached Smith's stables, which stood 

 at that time near the head of Sloane-street. A quiet 

 "office" had been given to a few of the Jockey Club, 

 to whom Priam granted a long audience in the course 

 of the afternoon. He was far on his road to Mickle- 

 ham Downs before any more visitors could arrive in 

 the morning, and had thus a clear nine days of quiet 

 preparation before the Derby, which, from its esta- 

 blishment in 1780 (when Diomed, Priam's great- 

 grandsire, won it) up till Amato's year, was always 

 run on a Thursday. The facts of the race, for which 

 twenty-three started, are easily told. Little Red 



