///// A'EfGN OF QUEEN AXNK A XI) HER INW.l'KXCE OX RACING. 195 



was sent to the Tower; when Mr. Craggs, father and son alike, died of sheer terror, 

 one within a few days of the other ; when Stanhope burst a blood vessel with indigna- 

 tion while he answered the furious accusations of the young Duke of Wharton ; and 

 when Sunderland only just escaped sentence, and died of heart disease soon after- 

 wards. \Valpole, almost alone, had kept his head throughout. He made a little 

 profit, and sold out at the right time ; and he left his hunting and bull-baiting at 

 Hough ton to go up to London and restore public credit. Does it not seem even 

 more wonderful, after considering these strange events, that any energy was left at 

 all for Racing in the country ? Yet there was evidently a special providence watching 

 over the fortunes of the English thoroughbred, for Queen Anne had not been dead a 



year before Flying Chil- 

 ders was foaled. His 

 pedigree, which will be 

 found in the Appendix, 

 shows a descent almost 

 entirely Eastern, and 

 there are many good 

 authorities who ascribe 

 to this an excellence 

 which was undoubted in 

 his generation, even if it 

 cannot be admitted that 

 it has remained unsur- 

 passed to-day. He was 

 by the Darley Arabian, 

 out of Betty Lecdes, who was by that famous horse Lord Wharton's Careless. 

 Bred in 1715 by Mr. Leonard Childers, of Carr House, near Doncaster, he was 

 a chestnut with white upon his nose and four white feet, standing 15 hands 

 and upwards, of short and compact form, with an immense stride. A fine painting of 

 him being exercised (by Sartorius) is in the Durdans Collection. He was bought 

 when a yearling by the Duke of Devonshire, and does not seem to have been raced 

 before he was six. Many tales are told of him, for which tradition must, I fear, be 

 more responsible than accurate record ; but they are worth repeating in any sketch 

 of his career. In 1721, for instance, in beating the Duke of Rutland's Brown Betty 

 (9 st. 2 Ibs.) over the Round Course, he is said to have done the 3 miles 4 furlongs 



Mr. Robinson's " Sampson." 

 By fermittion of H.R.H. Prince Christian 







V 



