THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER. 11 



one of his trials ; which the owner, no doubt, wished 

 to keep as secret as possible. They were a little too 

 late on the ground ; but they found an old woman, 

 who gave them all the information they wanted. On 

 their inquiring whether she had seen a race, she 

 replied, she could not tell whether it was a race or 

 not, but she had just seen a horse with a white leg 

 running away at a monstrous rate, and another horse, 

 a great way behind, trying to run after him ; but she 

 was sure he would never catch the white-legged horse 

 if he ran to the world's end. 



The first heat was easily won, when O'Kelly, ob- 

 serving that the rider had been pulling at Eclipse 

 during the whole of the race, offered a wager that he 

 would place the horses in the next heat (that is, that 

 he would name the order in which they would be 

 when the foremost reached the winning post). This 

 seemed a thing so highly improbable that he imme- 

 diately had bets to a large amount. Being called on 

 to declare, he replied " Eclipse first, and the rest 

 nowhere !" The event justified his prediction ; for all 

 the others were distanced by Eclipse with the greatest 

 ease (that is, he was at the winning post before they 

 had reached another 240 yards behind it, called the 

 distancing post), and thus, in the language of the turf, 

 they had no place. 



The pecuniary value of Eclipse and his progeny 

 must have been something enormous. He was the 



