PREPARATIOiir FOPv THE DERBY. 69 



CHAPTER XL 



THE PREPARATION FOR THE DERBY. 



The great event — tlie greatest of my life — approaclied. As 

 one of the two leading favourites for the Derby, truly may it 

 be said that the observation of the world was upon me. My 

 name was upon thousands, ay, and upon tens of thousands of 

 tongues ; and as I rose or fell a point or two in the betting, 

 men's eyes revealed the secrets of their hearts. Backjed as I 

 had been by our stable and the public, the interests of the 

 many v/ere concentrated in my anticipated triumph, although 

 numbers still laid heavily against me, and those were not 

 wanting who risked the hazard of the cast between wealth and 

 indigence, gain and beggary. Wliat watchful care was now 

 bestowed both night and day ! My box was constantly 

 guarded, so that no one on desperate mischief bent might 

 a2)proach to injure me, and thus render defeat a certainty by 

 some of the means too often exercised with success by those 

 outcasts of society branded with the name of "nobblers" — 

 tools in the hands of creatures as infamous and more crafty 

 than themselves. Even the path in which I walked to the 

 heath w^as narrowly examined to see if anything, either acci- 

 dentally or from design, had been placed in it of a nature 

 likely to lame me ; and, whether in or out of my stable, I was 

 always under the immediate direction and solicitous charge of 

 our trainer himself. The most insignificant particular was 

 entrusted to no one else. He gave me my corn, picked and 

 wdnnoAved from every particle of chaff and dust; and, as if 

 suspicious of some inimical design, would frequently dip a 

 finger into the water which' Harry Dale brought, and, drawing 

 it across his lips, tasted the draught before I was permitted to 

 drink. The first by my side in the morning, and the last to 

 quit it at night, was John Sellusall. Thus day by day crept on 

 until that arrived for my departure from Newmarket for 

 Leatherhead, at which place quarters were taken preparatory 



