THE HORSE. 181 



claret, business became quite brisk. Each owner had one 

 reserve bid, and it was quite a sight the next morning to watch 

 the different horses change stables, to the great bewilderment 

 of the grooms.' The great time of high prices was in Lord 

 Plymouth's day, who was never himself a particularly hard 

 rider. Among his most costly freaks was giving ' the Squire ' 

 six hundred guineas for a horse which had already seen six 

 seasons' work. He gave Sir Bellingham Graham one thousand 

 guineas for a couple of nags ; and Mr. Peter Allix seven 

 hundred for a mare he had only seen out once, and which 

 proved a very bad bargain. A horse called Confidence, once, 

 and more than once, the property of that rare old veteran 

 Mr. Lackley, was sold many times over for all prices ranging 

 from seven hundred and fifty to six hundred guineas, and once, 

 it is said, to Lord Plymouth for one thousand. The facetious 

 Lord Alvanley was another who would open his purse as wide 

 as it would go when the fancy took him. It is told of him 

 that being asked once why he had gone out of his line in a run 

 to get at the widest part of the Whissendine, he answered, 

 * What is the use of giving seven hundred guineas for a horse 

 if he's not to do more than other horses ? ' Sober Robin, the 

 famous nag on whose back the monstrous Dick Gurney used 

 to go pounding along with a pound weight of gold and silver 

 jingling in his waistcoat, was originally bought at Lincoln Fair 

 for eighty pounds, and sold to Mr. Gurney for one hundred. 

 He is described as 'a handsome, short-legged brown animal, 

 perhaps a trifle under sixteen-one,' and for twelve seasons 

 he carried his owner's nineteen stone to the front over the 

 Northamptonshire pastures. The most wonderful feat the pair 

 ever performed has been thus immortalised by our useful friend, 

 ' The Druid ' : 



Sir Charles Knightley's leap of thirty-one feet over a fence and 

 brook, just below Brixworth Hill, has ever since gone by the name 

 '* Knightley's Leap.' It was accomplished, we believe, on his cele- 

 brated black horse Benvolio ; but he was on his nearly as famous 

 bay, Sir Marinel, when he led Mr. Gurney, on Sober Robin, over a 



