272 THE HORSE. 



year to me in the racing way, I observe a caution ad- 

 dressed to clerks of courses relative to the posts. 

 These had previously been large and immovable, 

 whence they were very dangerous in the case of a 

 horse being driven against them. A change was re- 

 commended to posts " round, of a light brittle wood, 

 not above three inches in diameter, and two feet higher 

 than usual." This improvement was the result of a 

 fatal accident, which some time previously had hap- 

 pened at Newmarket, to poor " little Wicked," the 

 favourite lad of Lord Ossory, the boy being dashed 

 to pieces against one of the old immovable posts, in 

 riding a match. I was assured by one present, that 

 the p-ood natured Lord " cried like a child at this un- 

 fortunate event." Doubtless this improvement, with 

 respect to posts on racecourses, must have since taken 

 place universally. I further recollect a curious occur- 

 rence in the above year, at Newmarket second Spring 

 Meeting. In a B. C. great colt stakes, fifty-six sub- 

 scribers, one hundred guineas each, in which were 

 three or four of the best of the year, the race was 

 won by a colt by Gimcrack, certainly not within a 

 stone over the course, of the first raters. It hap- 

 pened thus. The leading horses, afraid one of the 

 other, waited, while the rider of the Gimcrack colt, 

 whose name I have forgotten, unheeded and neglected 

 by the rest, with his wits about him and a good 

 judgment, went away making all possible play, and 

 succeeded in gaining so much ground, that neither 

 Dictator, Potatoes, Tremamondo, nor Rasselas could 

 overtake him. The Lords Egremont and Derby will 

 remember this. I had left Newmarket the previous 

 day, but the circumstance was related to me by 



