THE EARLY RECORDS 17 



being extracted from the earth by the ton at Clunes, Buninyong, Warrenheip 

 and Ballarat. In September Her Majesty Queen Victoria had signified her 

 assent to the Bill which granted separation of Port Phillip from New South 

 Wales, and the province had now entered upon her career as a separate State. 

 The only skeleton at the feast was the recollection of that dreadful day at the 

 commencement of the year, when the world seemed to be on fire, and the 

 end of all things might possibly be at hand. Black Thursday, February 6th, 

 was a day ever to be remembered. 



But when the first outburst of the gold fever had somewhat subsided, 

 racing soon began to be more popular than ever before. With quantities of 

 money and loose nuggets to fling about, with a well-developed and constantly 

 indulged in itch for gambling, and with a natural sporting instinct, the diggers 

 soon made things hum in the horse racing line. And now it was that there . 

 grew up the absolute necessity for keeping stud records. We have already 

 noticed how inefficiently the stud careers of great mares such as Manto, 

 Cornelia and others had been noted, and how, at this particular period in the 

 history of the turf, it was more urgent than ever that a system should be adopted 

 for preserving all information concerning each brood mare and her progeny, 

 and of maintaining the breed as pure as it was possible to do under the peculiar 

 conditions inseparable from a new^ country. For things were still what we, 

 in vour modern parlance, would call "pretty mixed." The horse was the main 

 means of progression, railways were short in their mileage, and their branches 

 were scattered and few. The stage coach, buggies and horseback were prac- 

 tically the only means by which the country was traversed, and stock were 

 of necessity still to be driven immense distances to market. With horses in 

 profusion, with paddocks extremely large, with population scattered over a 

 tremendous breadth of lonely country, horse "duffing" was a very tempting 

 proposition to those people whose notions of "meum and tuum" were inclined 

 to be careless and slack. To pick up a good-looking brood mare, in foal 

 or with foal at foot, for nothing, was a temptation impossible to be resisted 

 by many with such a weakness, as they travelled on horseback through the 

 wild, outback places, behind their mobs of cattle and droves of sheep. The 

 bushrangers, those unfortunate "gentlemen of the road," too, required a 

 constant supply of horse flesh, and the better looking, and the better bred, 

 their cattle were, so much the more advantageous it was for them. 



Troubadour, Mr. C. M. Lloyd's well-known racing stallion, is reported 

 to have been stolen by Ben Hall on three separate occasions, but was always 

 recaptured. So many skirmishes had the old horse been in when ridden by 

 Hall that, on the death of the horse, a post mortem was held, when seven 

 bullets were discovered in various portions of his frame. Everyone has read 

 Rolf Boldrewood's inimitable book "Robbery Under Arms." The story of 

 horse stealing and cattle duffings is splendidly told in its pages, and the 

 description of the stock concealed in "The Hollow" by Starlight and his gang 

 is well calculated to make the mouths of all thoroughbred enthusiasts water, 

 and almost to cause the best of us to covet our neighbour's horse. Sappho, 

 the greatest and most successful colonial-born brood mare that has ever been 

 seen, was "lifted," I have been informed, on at least three occasions, and 

 Mr. George Lee had many long, weary rides whilst tracking the footprints of 

 those that led her captive. Some of the most distinguished matrons of our 

 stud book were either stolen or strayed mares whose owners never recovered 

 them, and whose new masters, as a matter of course, dared not acknowledge 

 "their pedigrees, even if they had them. There was "Black Swan, by Yattendon 

 from Maid of the Lake (bred by Captain Russell, of Ravensworth, but whose 



