150 MEMORIES OF MEN AND HORSES 



the best mares to go through the ring unsold, and then, 

 knowing we did not want to take them back to 

 England bargaining individually for them afterwards. 

 In this way they secured good mares at about half value, 

 and the game became no longer good enough. This 

 was a great pity on all accounts, for many of the most 

 successful brood mares in France owed their intro- 

 duction there to these sales, and when M. Halbronn, in 

 later years, used to come to the Newmarket December 

 sales, and buy for his French clients, he naturally had 

 not the same facilities for sure information in regard to 

 English stock as I had, and he not only had to give 

 more money than had ever been paid at Deauville or 

 in Paris, but bought not a few mares which, however 

 specious they seemed, had grave faults. 



To some extent Sir Blundell Maple had spoiled our 

 sales in France. He had, of course, good mares, and 

 one year I was glad enough to have ten or a dozen of 

 his to go to Deauville. Other sellers complained about 

 his absorbing so much of the catalogue of twenty-five. 

 But his lots sold very well, averaging something like 

 900 guineas. 



Encouraged by that, he wanted to monopolise the 

 whole catalogue the following year, and one could not 

 permit that, as against sellers who had borne the burden 

 and heat of the day in the earlier years. It ended in 

 our breaking through the limit of numbers which 

 M. Halbronn and I had up to that time scrupulously 

 maintained. We gave Sir Blundell a day to himself 

 and reserved another day for the other sellers. 



Here I let go my control of the position, so far as Sir 

 Blundell's mares were concerned, and this time he sent 

 over all that he really wanted to get rid of, and many of 



