BIRD-ON-THE-WINGS ILLNESS. 183 



Now suppose for a moment the horse had been struck out, 

 and being engaged in other races at the same meeting, had won 

 one of them. It would have been said immediately, a more 

 outrageous and infamous robbery had never been more in- 

 geniously concocted or carried out with effrontery so unblush- 

 ing ; that he had been backed by the public for thousands upon 

 thousands at all sorts of prices, and that the stable, having got 

 the last guinea out of him, had made him go lame and had 

 struck him out, knowing he was as well as any horse could be. 

 His subsequent running would have been pointed to as proof, 

 with the positive assertion that he could have won the Cup 

 just as easily, had he been sent for it. It would have been 

 added that horses often pull up lame from leg-weariness which 

 soon passes off, and that this had been the real cause of his ap- 

 parent break-down ; and the whole would have wound up with 

 the triumphant and significant remark, "That the man in the 

 street knew that it was so, and that the secret of his having 

 been so suddenly struck out must ever remain a secret to all 

 save those engaged in this profitable but dishonest transaction." 

 And what was it all .? Simply a clear case of leaving the 

 horse in though he had lamed himself, on learning which the 

 public, forming their own wise conclusions, clamoured to have 

 him struck out.- 



Again, I give an instance of a like nature. Exactly ten days 

 before Bird-on-tJie-wing had to run at Doncaster, her owner 

 came to see her, and at five o'clock in the evening (stable time) 

 she was taken ill, apparently in excruciating pain ; but at the 

 very time, our veterinary surgeon, Mr. Snow, passing quite 

 accidentally, was called in to see her. He said she was 

 suffering from acute inflammation of the lungs and was 

 dangerously ill, and prescribed, besides medicines for internal 

 administration, blisters for both her sides, and bleeding, as well 



