286 A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



seems to have gone too far in the other direction. He had absorbed, in fact, too 

 much of the old English stock, and though that hardy blood has preserved his family 

 in vigour to the present day, it has not enabled it to cope with the absolutely correct 

 (and probably quite fortuitous) mixture which produced Eclipse. This may be a 

 merely fantastic explanation of the figures, though it is borne out by the facts ; but 

 there seems to be no doubt that Herod mares would have their value at the present 

 day, just as in the times when O'Kelly would have nothing else, if he could help it, 

 for union with the Eclipse strain, and just as Mr. Tattersall hunted for Marske mares 

 to cross with Highflyer. A suggestion that deals more with the Eastern blood in each 

 case has also been made to account for the varying vitality in the strains of Matchem, 

 Herod, and Eclipse. As the best of these had most of the Darley Arabian in him, 

 so, it is suggested, does the excellence of the other two bear an exact proportion to 

 the amount of the Darley Arabian's blood which is mixed with that of the Godolphin 

 Arabian and the Byerly Turk respectively. On this theory Herod's superiority to 

 Matchem is accounted for by the Darley Arabian strain he got through the dam of 

 Blaze. 



Herod was bred by the Duke of Cumberland. He was a bay horse, without 

 white except a very small star, with a level back and high quarter, and deep in the 

 back ribs. He was bought by Sir John Moore after the Duke's death, after he had 

 beaten the Duke of Ancaster's Roman by Blank (8st. 7lbs., B.C., 500 guineas) in his 

 first race at five years old at Newmarket ; Sir John Moore's own son of Tartar out of 

 Miss Meredith ; Lord Rockingham's Tom Tinker by Sampson (Sst. 7lbs., to Herod's 

 8st. 1 3lbs., four miles, i.oooguineas) ; and the Duke of Grafton's^4/'/;;oz/5(8st. 8lbs.,B.C., 

 500 guineas, and again giving him gibs., over the same course for twice the money). 

 Only one defeat is recorded of him before his sale, that of 1765, when he was unable 

 to give a stone (as well as a year) to Sir James Lowther's Ascham at Newmarket. 

 But, in Sir John Moore's colours, he was beaten again by Lord Bolingbroke's Turf. 

 In 1767 he had his revenge on these two latter horses, but could not get his head in 

 front of Bay Malton for a sweepstake of 500 guineas a side, Sst. 7lbs., over the Beacon 

 Course, which put a lot of money into the pockets of the Yorkshire visitors. He had 

 broken a blood vessel in his head in the August of 1/66, and his last race was a 

 victory over his old opponent Ascham. No doubt his weak fore legs had begun to 

 tell, and he was sent to the stud soon afterwards. His offspring began to appear in 

 1771 ; between that date and 1787 they won .201,250, besides a large amount of claret, 

 and the Whip (by Anvil) ; the most famous of them were Highflyer, Woodpecker, Anvil, 



