564 THE IMPROVED ART OF FARRIERY. 



jack, Manica, Aleppo, Bullyrock, Whistlejacket, Dart, 

 and others, some of them out of mares of no great 

 repute. 



Flying Childers was bred by Leonard Childers, 

 Esq. of Carr House, Doncaster, and sold to the Duke 

 of Devonshh'e at three years old ; and according to 

 a cotemporary writer, his grace afterwards refused for 

 the horse his weight in silver, which probably would 

 have amounted to five or six thousand pounds, a vast 

 sum for a horse at that time. He was said to be 

 vicious, which seems to be indicated by his counte- 

 nance and manner, according to his portrait ; and, 

 like Eclipse, he was a resolute and headstrong horse. 

 No horse in his time could run within a distance 

 of him over the course. In form, he was short-backed 

 and compact, his length to a considerable degree being 

 made up in his legs, not, according to general estima- 

 tion, the most advantageous shape for a race-horse ; 

 but Childers was a horse above ordinances, superior to 

 the ordinary rules of form, by which others of his 

 species seem to be bound : there do not appear in his 

 portrait that depth and slant of shoulder which we 

 have seen in Eclipse. Childers probably did not race 

 until six years old, and never any where but at New- 

 market ; and there is an old and probable tradition 

 current in Yorkshire, that his extraordinary speed and 

 powers wer first discovered at a severe fox-cliase, in 

 which all other horses in the field were knocked up. 

 In colour he was bay, with white upon his nose, and 

 whited all fours, namely, upon his pasterns, the white 

 reaching highest upon his near fore-leg and his hinder- 

 leg. His head, although well joined to his neck, 

 and his muzzle fine, was rather thick over the jowl. 

 He was foaled in 17 15, and his pedigree is as fol- 

 lows : — 



