308 A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



line occur Saltram, Voltaire, Weaiherbit, Adventurer, Sterling, and Springfield ; while 

 Regnlus, his maternal grandsire is descended from the Sedbury Royal mare who was 

 the dam of Miss D'Arcy's Pet Mare (General btud Book, Vol. I., 15), and in whose 

 line are such names as Birdcatcher, St. Simon, Royal Hampton and Orme. 



The Darley Arabian was a bay of the family called by the Arabs " Managhi." He 

 was not " Koheilan Ras-el-Fedawi,"as Captain Upton thought. He had a white snip 

 down his face, like his great descendant, and of his three white feet Eclipse also kept 

 one. I have mentioned him here because there is a most interesting note in 

 Mr. Tattersall's First Album, stating the opinion that not Marske, but Shakespeare^ 

 was the sire of Eclipse, " for Sliakespeare was a large and strong chestnut with white 

 legs and face, who got chestnuts and was a good runner. Marske was a bad runner, 

 a brown, who got brown or bay. Mr. O'Kelly's groom says Eclipse 's dam was covered 

 by both, and first by Shakespeare." If this were true, Eclipse would trace back through 

 Shakespeare to Hobgoblin, Aleppo, and so to Flying Childers. But I cannot accept 

 "Mr. O'Kelly's groom" as evidence of what went on in the Duke of Cumberland's 

 stables, and the general consensus of expert opinion has long ago decided that the 

 real line is from Bartletf s Childers, own brother to Flying Childers by the Darley 

 Arabian, and so by way of Squirt, to Marske. I have already given reasons for 

 thinking that the greater impurity of this line in the matter of Eastern blood, as 

 compared with the other line, need be no argument against the excellence of its 

 progeny, and judged by the rough standard of results it would be difficult to find 

 better than Ellipse provided, though it is much to be regretted that he never had an 

 opportunity of racing Goldfinder by Snap, a horse of his own age who was a grand- 

 son of Flying Childers and therefore a representative of the line from the Darley 

 Arabian which has sometimes been considered superior in breeding to his own. 



H.R.H. The Duke of Cumberland owned both Marske and Spiletta, so that the 

 greatest credit that can ever be given to human agency in the production of their 

 famous offspring is due to him. The colt that was foaled in the year of the great 

 eclipse, and took his name from that sympathetic disturbance of the elements, has 

 been claimed by many localities. An old thorn tree on Sir Francis Doyle's property 

 at Mickleham, Dorking, is mentioned as his birthplace ; so are the Berkshire Downs 

 between Ilsley and Wantage ; and even the Isle of Dogs ; besides the most probable 

 of all, Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park. In any case, his owner and 

 breeder did not have the satisfaction of living long enough to see the beauty he had 

 got, for he was sold for about eighty guineas at the Duke's death, when little more 



