" MATCH EM" "HEROD" AND THEIR DESCENDANTS. 291 



twenty-one more crosses of Eclipse besides the four already mentioned, seventeen of 

 Matchem (inclusive of six of the Godolphin from other sources), and no less than 

 twenty-seven in all of that Herod whose descendants I am now more particularly 

 considering. It is a pedigree which not only shows how careful breeders used to be 

 in mixing the three great strains, but also proves the efficacy of their labours in 

 St. Simon's progeny to-day. But I must turn back at once to the Woodpecker branch 

 of Herod. 



In 1833 if I may omit other winners for the present was foaled Sultan's great 

 son Bay Middleton. This splendid winner of the Two Thousand and Derby of 1836, 

 was out of Cobweb (One Thousand and Oaks, 1824) who was by Phaniom out of 

 Filagree, by Soothsayer out of Web by Waxy. Lord Jersey had already bred Middleton, 

 of much the same blood, a big, rolling horse who preferred a T. Y. C., but won the 

 Derby after drinking a bucketful of water. After both Web and her daughter Filagree 

 had each thrown an Epsom winner to Phantom, Cobweb the grand-daughter did 

 better than either when her clear-winded Arab attributes were mated to the stock of 

 Sultan. Her son Bay Middleton stood nearly sixteen and a-half hands high, without 

 white except on three of his coronets, showing plenty of character. In after life he 

 became more brown than bay, and mottled on his quarters. 



At first Bay Middleton rather frightened his grooms. Lord Jersey had to beg Jem 

 Robinson to come and ride him, which he did for the first time, to the great relief of 

 Edwards, one morning at Newmarket. The first burst after the martingale was 

 broken took Jem across the Cambridge turnpike like a gunshot and into the Links. 

 He did not get very quickly into his stride, and five furlongs was not his best 

 distance, but whatever race he ran Robinson never heard him blow. His 

 first victory unnamed was in the Riddlesworth Stakes at the Craven Meeting, 

 which he won as he liked. For the Two Thousand he beat Elis on the post by a 

 neck at a pace which left all the others a very long way off. His Derby he won 

 against Gladiator, Venison, and Slane by two lengths, and Elis, his great rival, made up 

 for his absence on that occasion by winning the St. Leger, from which Bay Middleton 

 was absent. But the pair of them met for the Grand Duke St. Michael Stakes at the 

 First October Meeting, and frightened twenty-one horses out of the field, and the 

 Derby winner won again as some think owing to the extra stoutness he derived from the 

 greater amount of Darley Arabian blood in him, which gave that wonderful stride 

 downhill when Elis could not go the pace. " The Druid " has described his head as 

 "wicked"; but the arch of his neck was exquisite and beautifully set in from the 



