312 A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



which he made his appearance at Newmarket would deserve a special mention, if 

 only for the fact that two great founders of the American Turf especially distin- 

 guished themselves, namely, Mr. Piggott's Shark by Marske, who won 1,000 guineas 

 in his match against Mr. Greville's Postmaster by Herod, Rowley Mile, 8st., and Sir 

 John Shelley's Sarpedon by Snap, who was beaten by Lord Ossory's Dorimant by 

 Of ho, in the Great Sweepstakes (now the Two Thousand), worth ,5,500. The 

 same two owners met again, and with the same result, when Counts (another Otho) 

 beat Hudibras by Herod. Among the other horses were Lord Grosvenor's Little 

 Gem (by Gimcrack), Mr. Piggott's Bellerophon and Salopian (by Marske), Sir L. 

 Dundas's Pontac (by Marske), who beat O'Kelly's Horizon and five others over the 

 Beacon Course, the young Duke of Cumberland's Eclipse colt, who beat Mr. Ver- 

 non's Zerbino, and Lord Clermont's Johnny (by Matchem), who beat Lord Rocking- 

 ham's Cincinnatns (by Sampson). 



At the Craven Meeting of 1778 Lord Abingdon won the sweepstakes of 1,200 

 guineas with PotSos, but was so little consoled for his defeat in the previous year by 

 Lord Grosvenor's Grey Robin, that he sold him during the race to Lord Grosvenor 

 for 1,500 guineas, with the result thrown in, which may be taken as an example of a 

 bad bargain. Under the yellow and black cap PotSos promptly began a victorious 

 career on the Turf, which was only equalled by his successes at the stud, and com- 

 pares most favourably with the records of such favourites as Lord Ossory's Dorimant 

 (.13.363), Lord Rockingham's Bay Malton, or Shark's " ,15,507, eleven hogsheads 

 of claret, and a cup worth 120 guineas." It may be mentioned that the owners who 

 had registered their colours about this time were the Dukes of Cumberland, Grafton, 

 Devonshire, Northumberland, Kingston, Ancaster, and Bridgewater, the Marquis of 

 Rockingham, the Earls of Waldegrave, Oxford, March, Gower, Grosvenor, and 

 Farnham, Viscount Bolingbroke, Sir T. C. Bunbury, Sir John Moore, Sir James 

 Lowther, Messrs. R. Vernon, Greville, Jenison Shafto, C. J. Fox, Piggott, Blake, 

 Ogilvy, and Wentworth ; a small list when compared to the 590 of 1862 and the 

 enormous number at the present day. 



Whatever the majority of these gentleman may have thought of the merits of 

 PotSos, Lord Grosvenor soon made up his mind that he had got a treasure at the 

 Eaton stud, where this great stallion became the sire of 165 winners of prizes 

 amounting to ,57,595, the best of whom was Waxy, who has been thought to have 

 brought more "high quality" into English bloodstock than any other single sire. 

 Waxy was a bay, foaled in 1790, his dam Maria (by Herod), through whom he wqnt 



